Small Business Grants for Women and Minorities
Owning a small business can be a wonderful and rewarding experience. Unfortunately, launching one can often be extremely expensive. It is for that reason that many different organizations now offer specially designed grants to help women and minorities finance their small businesses. These organizations can be a great means of locating free funding.
A small business grant is simply a sum of money given to start or expand a small business. Like other forms of grants, small business grants need not be repaid. This makes them a particularly valuable source of investment for small business owners to start or grow their business.
National Association for the Self Employed
The National Association for the Self Employed (NASE) is a great resource for grants for minority and women small business owners. The NASE offers grants to small businesses to help them grow and expand. They also offer scholarships to help business owners gain knowledge and training on how to run a successful business and become a successful entrepreneur. In addition, they offer other benefits as healthcare coverage, insurance, supplies, credit cards and many other services.
WomensNet.net
WomensNet.net offers Amber Foundation Grants. These grants are specifically designed to help women start a small business. The organization has been providing grants for women since 1998. Their grants are generally for small amounts, between $500 and $1000. WomensNet.net also offers a wide variety of resources, including links to help with grammar and writing, legal information and many other basic yet important issues for women starting and running a small business.
U.S. Small Business Administration
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) does not offer grants directly; however, the organization can help find grants for small business owners, including women and minorities. They also offer a plethora of information to help small business owners start and run their companies. They even offer counseling and training services for small business owners to give them the knowledge and information they need to run a successful business.
USAGrantApplication.org
This agency focuses on helping minorities who want to start and own their own small business. Like the SBA, they do not offer grants directly. Instead, business owners fill out an application, and USAGrantApplication.org finds appropriate grants for that business. They do all the leg work of finding the qualifying grants.
Starting a small business is never easy, but with the grants offered for minorities and women, there are many ways to help finance the start-up costs. Taking advantage of these grants can be a great way to help get new small businesses off the ground.
Caleb Marks is a freelance writer who writes about small business and entrepreneurship. He graduated from Liberty University as a National Merit Scholar with a Bachelor of Science in Print Journalism.