Believe it or not there is such thing as gaining free finance to start up your business or to advance your business. The main type of this free finance comes in the form of business grants.
Before you approach any lenders or investors for business finance it is highly important that you work out exactly what you need your finance for within your business as business grants will not be awarded for the general running costs of your business; they are awarded to aid a specific outcome such as upgrading your premises for a new aspect of business or to train your staff to deal with a new business venture. The list goes on and on but the most important consideration to keep in mind when it comes to gaining your business grant are the factors that will affect whether you are granted a business loan or not. There are several factors that could affect whether you are awarded a business grant such as the location of your business. This is because you are more likely to be awarded a business grant if your business is based in an area that would highly benefit from your new venture.
As well as location you will also more likely gain a business grant based on the size of your business. This is because certain business grants are restricted to small and medium size businesses (SMEs) these refer to businesses with less than 250 employees.
If you are planning on applying for a business grant then I recommend that you make personal contact with the person or organisation who is supplying the grant. This personal contact should be ideally made by phone or face to face with a grants officer; it isn’t advised to just send in your application without prior contact. Just talk through the reasons why you are seeking a business grant with them first as they will be able to inform you whether your idea is suitable and worth applying for.
In the UK the total amount that is available to businesses via business grants is an estimated £5 billion per year; this may sound like a lot of money but don’t be fooled, the competition that you will face for a piece of this money is extremely high so when you are making your application you need to ensure that you thoroughly research your idea.
When it comes to gaining a business grant it can be a daunting task due to the pure volume of awarding grant schemes that exist. These are also constantly changing, with many ending and new ones beginning. There is however good news for businesses for the fact that most small businesses are eligible at some point to apply for a business grant scheme.
Whether you are a new business or you are an established business you can apply for a business grant as long as you have a specific business project or purpose to fulfil with the business grant. Also you need to be aware of the fact that a business grant won’t provide you with all of the money that you need, you will have to put half of the money towards it yourself.
So to get your business grant underway make your application today, you never know, free business finance might be coming your way soon.
