“Free Money” Government Grants for Your New Business: Fact or Fiction?

How to fund the purchase of an existing business or the start of a new business is often the first and the most difficult question a new business owner will face.  At the Strong Firm, we have helped clients work through this question countless times and have examined a wide variety of new business funding sources. For the purposes of this blog, we will examine the option of funding a new business via government grants.

Unfortunately and contrary to the claims of many the late night infomercial pitch men, generally the government is not bending over backwards to give entrepreneurs grant money that does not have to be paid back to start a business.  While it is true that there are some small government grants available to assist a very limited number of new business owners of certain specific businesses or initiatives, the reality is that these funds can be difficult to acquire and the process in applying for and obtaining these grants is often prohibitively arduous and time consuming.   On the extremely rare times that grant funds for a specific business are available, there are so many “strings attached” that it renders the grant impractical if obtainable at all.  In all of my years of practice at The Strong Firm, I have had a great number of clients expend a significant amount of time, effort, energy, and money tracking down the government’s “free money”, and not one has landed the elusive “free money” government grant.  Our advice is simply, save the $59.99 to $129.99 cost of these books and packages and the months, if not years, it could take to chase the dream of a “free government grant” and invest that time and money in pursuing more proven sources of business funding, such as traditional and SBA funding.  If you insist, however, on determining if there are actually any government grants available that could assist you, pass over the infomercial books and programs and simply visit  www.grants.gov , the official US Government website outlining available government grants directly.

Eric R. Thiergood, Sr.

Phone: 281-367-1222

Fax: 281-210-1361

[email protected]