Business Grants for Women are important, because without them our society remains less able to tap into this vital source of entrepreneurial skills than it should. For a variety of historic reasons, female representation is still inadequate in industry and commerce. Government and private grantors are aware of this imbalance. They offer a wide range of business grants for women in order to address this structural deficiency.
The Feminine Difference in Industry and Commerce
Because women often focus more on supporting their families and children, they may take their businesses and jobs more seriously than men, and often come out at the top. They are also less interpersonally aggressive and make better managers and supervisors. Some people say that we should let them displace men, and rule the world.
The Challenges that Women Face
Women in business face challenges from two directions. In the first instance, the prejudiced environment in which they grew up may have programmed them for mediocrity and failure. Secondly, the men with whom they compete in business often have onboard baggage that they inherited from the fathers. For this reason, women still have to work harder in America to succeed.
Business Grant Opportunities for Women
Are you a woman business owner or would like to get a business grant to start a business? Follow the links below for hints and tips of where to start:
- The Small Business Administration Office is the leader in the federal effort to level the business playing field for women. They do not just have business grant opportunities for women – they are available to counsel, teach, encourage and inspire too.
- Count-Me-In is a fundraising foundation that collects money from women for woman. Cash available ranges from $500 to a generous $5,000.
- Federal Money Retriever is a commercial website that was set up to sell software that facilitates research for government grants. They have a section dedicated to grants for women too.
- The Women’s Funding Network promotes the establishment of funds to empower women, and girls too. It achieves its goals by growing alliances between other organizations such as women, donors, communities and institutions.
- The American Association of University Women is one of the bigger private funding sources for graduate women in the world. Its targets are aspiring scholars, teachers and community activists, women at critical stages in the careers, and professions where the female gender is under-represented.
- Financial Women International exists to provide information about peer group-networking, mentoring, leadership development and woman career advancement opportunities.
The above are not the only sites that women but find useful, but they are a useful starting point and can provide onward links.
Beware of Scams
Not all business grants for women (or men for that matter) are what they seem. Women are sometimes more likely to fall victims to swindles because their inexperience cam make them more naïve. Women and men too most constantly remember that if it is too good to be true it probably is. Take advice from and report malpractices to the Federal Trade Commission or the National Fraud Information Centre.
