How to Apply for Grants for Your Small Business or Nonprofit

Trying to find and acquire funding for your organization can be an intimidating task if you don’t have experience with it. Grant Consulting Services, LLC, works to demystify the process and help it feel less abstract so you can get the funding you need for your small business or nonprofit. 

There are a few main steps to consider to get started: determining the types of grants to apply for, finding grants to apply for, writing your proposals, and communicating with the funders while you use the grant funds. We’ll walk you through the steps to help you get a grasp of the specifics of your tasks.

Determine The Grant Source and Type

There are several different types of grant opportunities available and you want to make sure you are not wasting your time and research efforts. Based on the type of grant you are applying for, it will determine the time frame spent working on the application and overall proposal. For example, most government grants can take between 40-50 hours to complete while working on a non-government grant proposal may only take about 10 hours to complete. The different sources include: government agencies, corporate, and foundation grants. The different types of grants can include: program/project, capital, capacity building, and general operating.

Find Available Grants

The next step in your process will be to research which grants are available for organizations like yours. If you’re a business owner, the Small Business Administration is a great place to start. They are a government agency that’s equipped to help your business excel. Nerdwallet has an amazing resource about where to find grants for small businesses. Grants for For-Profit organizations are much less common than grants for non-profit organizations. 
If you work for a nonprofit, Get Fully Funded has some tips on where to find grants for your organization. If you’d like to research funding through federal grants, you can start at grants.gov. In addition, there are a lot of ways to find foundations who are looking for nonprofits to fund to advance their goals and values.

Apply For Grants For Your Business or NonProfit

When you’re writing a proposal for a grant, your goal is to explain your need and your vision to solve the need to the potential funders. You will need to prove your eligibility, talk about the history of your organization, share where you’re at right now, and tell them how you’re planning to use the money. 

It’s important to humanize your organization in your grant application. This is where your unique brand voice and goals need to really shine. Each funder will have their own values that they are trying to promote, so it’s important to make it clear how you will exemplify those values and carry on their mission.

Use The Grant Funding For Your Organization

When you secure grants for your small business or nonprofit, there are rules for how to use them. Obtaining the funding might be contingent upon your organization fulfilling certain requirements, as decided by the funder, and you will likely need to report back about how the money was used.
If you would like some help with this process, you can contract with a grant professional. At Grant Consulting Services, LLC, we would be happy to work with you on every step of the process. Please contact us today to discuss our grant development process and see how our team can make a positive difference for your organization. You can fill in the contact form on this website, or email us at [email protected].

Resources

Get Fully Funded. (2019). 5 Places to Find Grants for Your Nonprofit for FREE! Retrieved from https://getfullyfunded.com/5-places-to-find-grants-for-your-nonprofit-for-free/

Grants.gov. (2022). https://www.grants.gov/

NerdWallet. (2022). Small-Business Grants: Where to Find Free Money. Retrieved from https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/small-business/small-business-grants