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Information about grants for small business, Welcome

Who are you??, Where are you?? How soon do you plan on starting this business??

A good place to start is SCORE. SCORE is FREE

Despite what the man in the "question mark suit" tells you, government grants are not available to anyone and everyone in search of funds.

Are there grants out there, either from the private sector or government? Sure.

Thing is, you're going to have to do the research here yourself, and it won't be easy. If I had to guess, I'd say that you're probably wasting your time.

Spend some time on the Web and make some contacts. You can not expect someone to spoon feed you here.

Start with the SBA:
http://www.sba.gov/aboutsba/sbaprograms/onlinewbc/index.html

Then go to your state, county, and city governments, and ask about help for people who want to start a business. Most of these will have "small business development centers" or something of that nature.

If you have a good business-oriented college in your area, you can contact the school to see if they have any entrepreneurship-related programs.

One word of advice: Do not spend a ton of money with matchmaking services that promise to find the grant for you. You might spend $20 on a book with a list of small business grants, but that's about it.

I believe that Houston has at least eight minority business development councils and chambers, and at least three more that focus on female owned businesses. I'd recommend getting involved with one or more of those. If there's grant money available somewhere for your type of business, they'll know all about it. Good luck.