Grants For Women-Owned Business Ventures and Where to Find Them
Women-owned Business
According to Score.org, nearly one-third of all businesses in the United States are woman-owned. Statistics from 2005 reveal that 775,000 new business start ups every year (55%) are women-owned.
So where do women entrepreneurs go to find funding for their start up businesses?
Many assume that federal government programs would be at the top of list. However, there may be more opportunities at the state, county and local levels. Finding these types of grant programs requires a bit more digging, but the effort can be well worth it.
Step 1 – Women-Owned Business Grants
A first step would be to visit Grants.gov and look through current offerings. Next, spend several hours scouring your state’s main web site. Do the same for your county and city web sites. Send emails and make phone calls to see if you can learn of anything new that is not yet posted.
Also it’s important to know about special small business classifications that may apply in certain situations: minority-owned, disadvantaged and veteran-owned — in addition to ‘woman-owned’. If you qualify for one or more of these special categories, your application may get priority over other business owners.
In today’s economy, technology and innovation ideas have a greater chance of special grants and loan programs. Have an idea specific to green energy or recycling? The timing has never been better.
What to do if your start up is not technology or energy related? If the business start up can be made flexible to fit specific projects, such as workforce training, or capital improvements to public facilities, the funding possibilities increase.
Step 2 – Women-Owned Businesses – sign up
Sign up to get information on very specific types of projects at Grants.gov and consider adapting to fit the requirements. Based on current product or service needs, you can construct a winning plan that provides a solution. Your reward for finding that solution could be a grant or low cost loan.
Learn more about business and educational grants for women at WomensGrantSource.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cathy_Yeatts
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UK Government Initiatives for Women-Owned Businesses
The government has pledged to make at least half of all new appointees to the boards of public companies to be women by the end parliament.
Business minister Edward Davey and Lynne Featherstone, minister for equalities, announced that Lord Davies of Abersoch will develop a business strategy to increase the number of women on the boards of listed companies in the UK.
Featherstone says: ‘We need to do more to identify and tear down the barriers that prevent women rising to the top in business, and I look forward to working with Lord Davies to make this happen.’
Research from Cranfield University highlights a lack of female directors in Britain’s top businesses, with women making up only 12.2 per cent of directors of the FTSE 100 companies in 2009. The FTSE 250 companies have an even lower proportion of female directors at 7.3 per cent, and nearly half of them do not have any women in the boardroom.
Lord Davies, who is the former chairman of Standard Chartered and a former government minister, has been asked to address the obstacles women face in becoming directors of listed company boards and what action the government and business should take to improve the position.
He comments: ‘While it is essential that the boards of UK companies are meritocratic, the fact that there are only 131 female directors in FTSE 100 companies means that we cannot be using all the skills and talents that make our workforce so competitive. ’
The recommendations are to be made by the end of the year.
Why not ask one of the women on this site. Do you have a story about women-owned Businesses.
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