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Maybe you don’t need a bunch a money to get your idea off the ground. Maybe all you need is just a few thousand dollars to get your idea to go. Well, there are hundreds of non-profit organizations that offer small grants and easy loans aimed at people who would never be able to get money from traditional sources. It is difficult to locate all of these groups around the country but two good starting places are: 1) Association for Enterprise Opportunity at 703-841-7760 or www.microenterpriseworks.org/nearyou/ and 2) The Foundation Center at 212-620-4230 or www.fdncenter.org
A dream come true can be buying out your boss and running the whole business yourself. You probably always thought you could do it better anyway. Government money programs can be used for this too. Your boss may secretly be looking for someone to buy the place so she can go to the beach and finally write that “Great American Novel” that she has always been dreaming of. Much of government money can be used for this too. Start looking for federal money in the The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance published by the U.S. Government Printing Office (www.gpo.gov) or look at it for free on the web at www.cfda.gov . Then check your State Government Office of Economic Development and tell them what you are trying to do. You can call 411 and ask for the state capital operator in your state capital or go to www.govengine.com and click on your state and find the office that is listed under business and/or economic development.
Don’t believe it when some professional tries to scare you into thinking how hard it is to write a business plan or fill out a money application. This is the least of your problems plus there is plenty of free help in filling them out when the time comes. The first thing you must do in getting government money is get a copy of the application that you believe may give you the money you need. No one should ever investigate hiring a professional before you even know where you are going to apply for the money. And once you get an application in hand and you think you need help contact your local Small Business Development Center at 800-8-ASK-SBA or http://www.sba.gov/sbdc/sbdcnear.html . They will help you for free or for next to nothing. You can get help from the best grant writing experts in the country at a non-profit organization called The Foundation Center. Their materials are available for free in libraries all over the country. You can find out where by contacting them at 212-620-4230 or www.fdncenter.org. By the way, I’ve seen a lot of applications for government money and many of them were so sloppy and unintelligible that any teacher would have given them a flunking grade, but they still got their money. And some applications are only one page long and you can get up to $150,000 for filling them out. Worrying about filling out an application before you have one in hand, is like buying a prom dress before you are invited to the prom. First things first.
The government is so concerned about creating jobs in small towns they gave someone $150,000 to start a winery in the middle of Iowa. See http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rd/newsroom/2003/vadglist03-final.pdf. There is a lot of money and help to start a business in a small town. The government is concerned about unemployment in small towns so it has committed a number of loans and grant programs to encourage almost any kind of entrepreneuring venture. Montana gave out a $25,000 grant to help small businesses in rural areas figure out how to get government contracts. See http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/mt/News/Montana/2004/63004RBEG.htm . So check out the small towns in your area. Who cares if you have to drive an additional hour to work if someone is going to give you $150,000 to start your business. A good place to start to see what kind of money is available is your local U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development Office http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/recd_map.html
Who says you have to have an actual store to have a store? And who says that you even have to have any products to have a store. You can start a virtual store on the web. For this you only need pictures of the products and a source to get the products when someone actually buys them from your website. Call a dozen suppliers of the product you are interested in and see if they would go into a 50/50 partnership when sales come in. You can find suppliers for any product from books in the library. Once you learn how to bring in sales, you can get your own store and keep all the money yourself. If you want to start a bookstore you can contact local hospitals, office buildings or other big structures, and make a deal with them to sell products in the lobby for people hanging out all day. And then contact a local bookstore to share the profits with them. Or you can approach a local bookstore and tell them that you will figure out how to sell books to the government and want a 50/50 deal. The bookstore has nothing to lose and you get to have a business with no money or books. And how are you going to learn to sell to the government? The government will teach you for free. Contact your local government sponsored Small Business Development Center and they will teach you for free. Contact: 800-8-ASK-SBA or http://www.sba.gov/sbdc/sbdcnear.html
In addition to the federal government you also have to contact your state government. Every state has a number of money programs for people to start or expand a business in their state. Governors compete with other governors to see who can create the most jobs, and that’s why they offer money for people who create jobs in their state. You don’t even have to be a residence of the state. You can live in one state and put your business in a state that offers you more money. States also offer special money for entrepreneurs to put their business in certain areas of the state or in certain areas of a city. There are also other money programs to build buildings or renovate old buildings. Some of this money comes from federal sources which is given to the states and distributed to entrepreneurs in the state. Other money is generated from local taxes. And some states use the winnings from their lottery money to give to entrepreneurs to create or expand businesses.
Many states offer programs from more than one agency. So it may take some time to find all the programs in a given state. A good place to start is your State Government Office of Economic Development located in your state capital. You can call 411 and ask for the state capital operator in your state capital or go to www.govengine.com and click on your state and find the office that is listed under business and/or economic development.
You can actually get up to $1,000,000 in grants and or loans to open or expand a business from the U.S. Federal Government alone. There are over 100 different money programs available from offices ranging from the U.S. Small Business Administration to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to the U.S. Department of Commerce. For the best source identifying all federal only government money programs available, look at a government published book called The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance published by the U.S. Government Printing Office (www.gpo.gov) or look at it for free on the web at www.cfda.gov. Another good starting place to find anything in the federal government is a free service called the Federal Information Center at 1-800-FED-INFO or www.pueblo.gsa.gov/call