How to win cash grants for small businesses

You may be wondering how to secure cash grants for small businesses. It’s no surprise that the competition to win cash grants for small businesses can be rife. Therefore, you should be aiming to make your application stand out from the crowd.

The best thing about grants is that you don’t have to pay them back. This is the case unless you fail to meet any objectives of conditions the grant was awarded on. If you’ve never bid for funding before, you may be wondering where to start and what’s required.

Here are our tips for finding and securing cash grants for small businesses:

Where to look for cash grants for businesses

A lot of cash grants for small businesses can be found via:

What sort of cash grants for small businesses are there?

There’s an abundance of cash grants available for innovation, technology, research and development (R&D). If you are in either of these areas, you should look at the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programme. Many cash grants for small businesses will cover niche areas. This can range from reducing plastic packaging to planting wildflowers.

Often you can find grants that are awarded to encourage certain initiatives or to solve a problem. Funders want to get to the root cause of an issue putting their money towards a long-term solution.

How much cash is available?

The amount of funding available is totally dependent on the funder. Each grant is different, but most won’t totally cover the whole costs of your business. A lot of them may also require you to match their funding. Therefore, it’s important that you have other sources available to combine with the grant funding.

This may be a requirement for a grant you’re applying for. It’s best you check whether this is a deciding factor or not before going ahead.

Cash grants for small businesses can range in price from a couple of thousand to hundreds of thousands. As well as grants for businesses, there is a range of grants available for specific sectors that have certain objectives. For example:

How to find cash grants for small businesses

Trawling through hundreds of websites to find a grant suitable for your business can take a lot of time. Often, it’s time you don’t have spare – you’re busy enough as it is running a small business! Ideally, you want to find one central portal that posts all grant funding opportunities.

Luckily for you, we have the answer to your prayers…

Here at Discover Grants, our Grant Tracker service  hosts all the latest grant opportunities within the UK from 1,500 data points. Opportunities are manually tracked, enabling accurate keyword labelling, optimising your search for the perfect grant. This can help streamline your search for grants for small businesses.

All you have to do is register your details to gain access to over 1,770 grants for free!

What do I need to know to be successful with my grant application?

Before you even begin applying for cash grants for small businesses, you should ask yourself the following:

  • Do you have the time and resources to apply for it by the deadline?
  • Am I eligible to apply?
  • Do they offer the amount of funding you require?
  • Are there any obligations you need to meet as a condition of the funding award? If so, can you meet these?

A good way to analyse if an opportunity is right for you is using a SWOT analysis. This can help you unpack and decide if an opportunity is right. You should assess the:

  • Strengths
  • Weaknesses
  • Opportunities
  • Threats

Once you’ve established that this is the right grant opportunity for your business, you can start planning your application.

7 tips to submit a winning cash grant for small businesses application

  1. Plan efficiently and well in advance

Preparing and planning your time efficiently is one of the key steps you can take toward a successful application. Once you have decided you’re going for an opportunity, work backwards from the submission date. This can help you get your affairs in order.

Set realistic internal deadlines for you and your team to collect any evidence or data needed. Funders are keen on evidence, stats and facts and this will strengthen your response.

A checklist can help you make sure you’re collecting and submitting everything you need. It might be a good idea to make a note of:

  • Submission date and time

This is vital in order for you to prepare and compose your bid on time. A good time management idea is to work backwards from this date. Set internal deadlines for you and your team.

Remember to leave enough time for a review of your grant proposal. This is essential. You should be double-checking that everything is in line with what the funder is expecting. The specifics will be outlined in the grant specification.

  • Key points and questions to cover

Make a note of the key points each question is asking. There may be four sub-questions within one question that needs addressing. The best way to tackle this is to cut it down into subheadings for each point.

Using bullet points can also help you get down key information without taking up too many words.

  • Word or page count for each question

It’s important that you stick to the word counts provided. They are there for a reason. They help level the playing field when it comes to responses. If a funder thinks a response deserves a 1000-word response, get as close to the word count as possible. Writing a 200-word response won’t suffice. Additionally, writing 1,500 words won’t do either. Stick as close to the word count as you can else you may get penalised.

Be sensible and detail all the information required. However, it’s important to remember that quantity over quality isn’t always best. If you’re submitting page after page just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Try and plan out your response, highlighting the key points that need to be covered.

If there’s no assigned word count for a question, assign your own. Base it on the size and specification of the question. This can help you stay focused and not ramble on. Look at the word counts for questions of similar sizes. Staying focused can be half the challenge but setting your own word count for a question can help.

  • The format of the proposal

You must submit your grant proposal in the format outlined in the specification. Funders can be very strict on the formatting of your proposal. If they state bids must be in front size 12 in Times New Roman font – do that.

If you ignore these instructions, they may mark your bid down. It shows that you do not have attention to detail or can follow instructions. If you do this, they may not trust you with their money.

One thing funders can be particularly pernickety about is tables. When entering your information in a table format, make sure you don’t adjust it in any way. Our past experiences have led us to believe that these tables should never be altered. It can be quite inconvenient, but you should try and adhere to this where possible.

  • Supporting documents

Before you begin your cash grant for small businesses proposal, make a note of the required supporting documents. These will be outlined in the how to apply or specification. They will likely be additional pricing documents and they could include company CVs. Additional documents can also include

  • How to submit the application

Make sure that you know how to submit the application ahead of the submission deadline. Double-check the requirements. Is it via a portal, as a hardcopy or by email? The last thing you want is to be worrying about how to submit your bid after hours/weeks of hard work.

  1. Include a business plan

It’s likely that you will need to apply a business plan in your cash grants for small businesses application. You should include:

  • An executive summary

This should cover the essential core information about your business. Explain the history of the business. When did it start trading and what progress has it made? What is the current ownership structure? Describe your product/service, what benefits does it offer? What changes and improvements are you planning?

  • Market and competition

What sets your business apart from your competitors and what’s your key demographic? Detailing market share insights within your business plan can be a good way to demonstrate this. The current trends and changing tastes of your customers are important to detail. Who are your competitors and what’s their advantages/disadvantages compared to you?

  • Sales and marketing strategy

The questions you should answer in this section for your business plan for grants are: Where do you position your service/product in the market? What’s your pricing policy? How do you promote your product or service? How do you sell your product or service? What sales channels do you use to reach your target audience?

  • Description of your management structure and key personnel

Funders care about the people behind the scenes and the general management structure. Including an overview of your team will enable them to get a better feel for your company. Including relevant skills, credentials and qualifications will strengthen your bid. Putting faces to names can also help. Including friendly and professional photos of your team members can be a nice touch.

Analyse the workforce in terms of total numbers and by the department. Be realistic about the commitment and motivation of your workforce. Useful figures to include here would be sales, employee retention and measures of productivity.

  • Business operations

Looking at the efficiency and capacity of your operations and any planned improvements are always good to include. What management information systems do you have in place and are your IT systems reliable? These are the type of questions you should detail in your grant application. Moreover, you should note the quality/regulatory standards that your business conforms to. For example, ISO 9001 and so on.

  • Financial forecasts

Set out your past financial information from the last three to five years if possible. You will also need to provide the forecasts for the next three-plus years. It may be a good idea to include your financial forecasts in an appendix. Use the cash flow forecast to predict any financing requirements.

  • SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis will never go a miss. You may or may not be required to add one, but it’s a useful exercise. Set out a one-page analysis of your business strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and strengths. You should be honest in this section as if you lie and then underperform a funder will question your legitimacy.

  1. Realistically evaluate the amount of funding you’re after

You should be realistic with your funding proposal. Don’t be cheeky with the amount you’re asking for. You shouldn’t be accounting for 10 iMacs when 10 computers of another model will suffice.

Demonstrating a sound methodology for cash flow management will be beneficial. Include past projects where you have handled the cash and what safeguarding policies you have in place.

  1. Follow the formatting and specification

Every opportunity will include a funding specification. Here you can find more details of the funder’s objectives and anything you need to address in your application. You should closely refer to this. There may be formatting information that you need to adhere to. It’s best you follow this to the letter as funders can be strict with this. After all, if you can’t follow these instructions, how can you be trusted with their (or the taxpayer’s) money?

  1. Show innovation and sustainability

Innovation, sustainability and social value are three key aspects of the grant application. Ask yourself if you offer any innovative solutions to an issue. Do you offer anything unique and more sustainable than your competitors?

Grant awarding bodies for cash grants for small businesses are big on sustainability. They don’t want to give their money to short-term solutions. Detail how your business and their funding is going to be long-lasting.

Consider the social, economic and environmental beneficial factors of your business. Include positive, measurable outcomes that continue after the funding has come to an end. This will strengthen your proposal and increase your chances of success.

  1. Proofread your proposal before you submit

Before you submit, you should always proofread your submission. Ideally, you will complete the proposal early, leaving a couple of days in between before you read over it. This means you will have a fresh pair of eyes and be more able to pick up on small mistakes. You can check if it’s in line with the specification. You can see if you’ve answered everything required in the grant documents.

Asking a co-worker or friend to look over your proposal before you submit is also beneficial. Getting another perspective is always good, helping you get a rounded view. They can point out if you can expand in certain sections or if you’re rambling unnecessarily. Reading aloud can also help you check if it’s coherent, allowing you to catch sentences that don’t quite work.

  1. Familiarise yourself with the application process

A lot of application processes for the same funders will be similar. It’s best to familiarise yourself with what’s required from the application process before you begin.

For example, Innovate UK grants are often laid out in the same way requiring the same information.

Your application is split into 3 sections:

  1. Project details

  • Application team
  • Application details
  • Subsidy basis
  • Research category
  • Equality, diversity and inclusion
  • Project summary
  • Public description
  • Scope

  1. Application questions

  • Project partners location
  • Need or challenge
  • Approach and innovation
  • Team and resources
  • Market awareness
  • Outcomes and route to market
  • Wider impacts
  • Project management
  • Risks
  • Added value
  • Costs and value for money

  1. Finances

Any cash grants for small businesses will likely require you to submit your business finances. This includes:

  • Project costs
  • Organisation details
  • Funding details.

Remember

Always ask for feedback from any grant proposal you submit. If you don’t secure a grant the first time around, don’t be disheartened and keep trying. It’s understandable due to the competitiveness of securing business grants.

There’s support available if you’re still struggling with your proposal for cash grants for small businesses. Outsourcing your bid to grant writing experts can help optimise your chances of success when applying for funding opportunities.

You could also check out Business Gateway Grants and Grants for businesses to see what you’re eligible for.

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Our Grant Writing Service is for businesses who want to start applying for grants, but don’t know where to begin. If you don’t have the resources or the time in-house to write a winning grant – we can help.

Our Grant Writing Consultants have over 60 years of experience in bidding for funding and grants. From start-up business grants to self-employed business grants. They can take care of the whole thing for you – they’ll even submit it on your behalf.

Get in touch to find out how we can help your business grow!

Grant Tracker

You can find this grant and others like it on our Business Grant Tracker. Currently, we have over 1,700 live business grant and funding opportunities. Our team have manually tracked 1,500+ data streams searching for business grant opportunities. Each one is then uploaded to one central system, streamlining the process.

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