By Kim Mercado, NEXT
When you start a small business, there’s one thing you need more than anything else: money. However, getting money to fund a business has been challenging for women, particularly women of color.
While women continue to make strides in raising more venture capital, they still only garnered just 2% of the total capital invested in venture-backed startups in the U.S.
To source money for their new businesses, women need to look at multiple funding avenues. As NEXT points out, one opportunity is small business grants for women, which can get overlooked by traditional loans and lines of credit.
What are business grants for women?
Business grants provide money to set up or grow your business, and you don’t have to pay it back. Free money — sounds good, right?
Grant opportunities are different from business loans because you don’t need to repay them — no lenders or dealing with payback schedules.
The downside is that it can be harder to qualify for a business grant than for a small business loan. You have to be prepared to put some work into the grant application.
However, if you’re a woman starting a new business, it can be much easier to qualify for dedicated grants for women.
Federal government grants for women
The federal government offers several grant programs for small business owners. Most of them are for all small business owners, not just for women, but they are still worth checking out.
Grants.gov
Grants.gov is a huge database of government grants spanning over 20 federal agencies. While it’s not exclusive to small businesses or women-owned businesses, you can search for federal grants that are suitable for your business using keywords and filters.
To apply for any grants, you need to have a Unique Entity Identity Identifier (UEI) — a unique 12-character business identification number (previously, you had to provide a DUNs number). You also need to register your business with the federal government and…
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