What Do You Have to Know About Governmental Grants

Everyone has seen TV commercials, the 30 minute Infomercials late at night, the seemingly endless emails offering governmental grants to start a business, pay the bills, write a book or solve all money problems. In order to acquire this information it is necessary to pay money but there is an opportunity to obtain it for free.

First of all it is important to know the following:

1. According to the Federal Office of Management and Budget, the department that tracks all government spending, 95.7% of all grants are given to county governments, city or township governments, independent school districts, state controlled institutions of higher education, Federally recognized Native American tribal governments, non-profits other than institutions of higher education including community action agencies and other organizations having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, as well as private institutions of higher education and State governments.

The other 4.3% are appropriated for education, job training and vocational rehabilitation.
Do you qualify?

2. There are certain governmental entitlements available, such as social security disability, Medicaid, welfare, low cost housing, child care and etc. Again, do you qualify?

3. The individual states may have some grants available for business startups and expansion, if you are creating jobs! If you plan to open a “bricks and mortar” business that will employ more than five full-time workers, you may likely to get help from your state.

4. If you do find a grant for which you are eligible, get ready to jump through some hoops, flatter and serve influential officials and wait a long time! Even for non-profit organizations and businesses that can employ for up to five or more workers it is very complicated time-consuming process.

For more information on the websites offering governmental grants refer to Google search engine.

It should be noted that most grants are not the answer. The ones that do apply to you are probably very complicated and very competitive to obtain and require further investigation.