119 Liz Fleming – Grants for your business – It’s all in the preparation

GRANTS

For Your Business

PHOTO TAKEN AT DRIFTY FIELDS, MORWELL

It's All in the PREPARATION

with Liz Fleming The E ciency Coach

Welcome back to 2022! It’s a new year and there’s a great sense of business con dence in the air! Let’s hope we all stay operating as best we can and take full advantage of any opportunities that come our way!

That’s our approach here at The Efficiency Coach HQ. I’m expanding and have my fabulous PA, Deb with me on a permanent, part-time basis. Having additional support in my business will be great so I can be more efficient in achieving my business goals and having fun along the way!

It’s that time of year when everyone is back from their summer holidays, the kids are back at school and it’s full swing into business work. Time to knuckle down and make hay while the sun shines! Government officials are busy too – there will be several grant programs being released over the coming months, which is all very exciting! The problem is, we’re never quite sure what grant programs will be released or when these will happen!

Is your business ready for a grant? Do you even know what is required to apply for a grant? Would you have su cient time and resource to complete a grant application tomorrow, if a grant program was released that suited your business?

I must make a confession, (a geeky one) but I love writing grant applications for small businesses and community groups, for me it’s the best way to gain a comprehensive understanding of a business, to capture their goals and aspirations, drawing out their creative genius to develop project plans and financial projections to support a grant application. It’s usually an enjoyable, collaborative process working closely with business owners, both aiming (and hoping) for a positive outcome, with a few tight deadlines thrown in (nothing like a bit of pressure). I treat grant applications a bit like writing an exam (I told you I was a geek!)

A grant application normally represents some form of business improvement, a new project, building on existing projects or trying something new in the business, which normally leads to some form of efficiency being created! I’m all about creating those efficiencies!

There’s a lot of groundwork that needs to be done prior to a grant application even being written. It’s all in the preparation, to ensure nobody gets overwhelmed and nothing gets overlooked, leading to the business having the best chance of being successful in their grant application. There’s always a stack of documents and information that is necessary, that are sometimes hard to find or complicated to produce (especially in a short timeframe), so I cannot stress enough that it really is all in the preparation.

Grants can come in many forms, from various organisations, with various conditions and requirements, depending on what the desired outcomes are for the funding organisation. There are grants available at a federal, state, and local government level, as well as private organisation grant programs and community grants on offer.

We all love it when a grant program is released, but are we as small business owners in a position to make a credible grant application to be in the running for the grant at the time it comes out? Sometimes the answer is no. That’s my focus for this year, educating small business owners about the grant application process and how to be best prepared for you and your business. I have been involved in various grant programs from both sides of the table. I was once responsible for a grants team in a senior government role, and I have also written a few successful grant applications across a number of grant programs. I currently have an 80% success rate of grant applications as I take an honest approach to assessing the likelihood of how suitable the grant is for your business, from the very beginning. I strive to ensure that nobody wastes their precious time (including mine), to ensure an efficient allocation of resources within the business to complete the grant application.

In my opinion, grants should be treated like a bonus, it’s great if you get one, and not the end of your business if unsuccessful. I also encourage business owners to consider if that project would be most likely to be undertaken regardless of the grant and whether the grant may be a great opportunity to fast-track the improvements or project.

It is also important to do your research and determine whether there are other small businesses that you could partner with, collaborate with, and potentially submit one grant application that will mutually benefit several small businesses for the same common goal and collective outcomes.

The process of applying for grants can provide valuable insight and clarity of where your business is heading, as you’ll be forced to better understand and know your numbers and business operation metrics. This is especially important if there is a co-contribution requirement of the grant - can you afford to fund the co-contribution, do you have the ability to source the funds? Other important factors to consider include such questions as; are there suppliers who can deliver the project, and do you have the resources and capacity to project manage the project in the given timeframe if you were successful (especially when a number of grants do not allow for project managers to be funded)?

Grants are an investment that can pay-off substantially for your business over the long-term, mainly due to the uncertainty surrounding the entire grant process, nothing is guaranteed in the world of grants. Grant applications can also not be rushed, as you normally need to collate several business and official documents, some that you can create yourself, but some require input from other businesses, such as quotes, plans and designs, and letters of support.

Each grant program is different with different eligibility criteria, different outcomes and benefits, different timeframes, different requirements, different co-contribution percentages, different application forms and different formats, but they do all follow a general format that does allow for some forward planning and preparation.

Nobody ever really knows when grant programs are released, but we do know that the application period is never very long – sometimes as little as 4 weeks from the grant program being released and applications closing. It’s all in the preparation.

If you are a small business owner who wants to know more about the grant application process, please get in touch and keep an eye out for my online webinar ‘7 Steps to Writing a Successful Grant Application’ that I will be presenting and sharing throughout the year.

Let’s make the year of 2022 a prosperous year for us all.

Stay efficient!

Liz Fleming The Efficiency Coach is a business mentor and accountant based in Traralgon in Gippsland. Liz is passionate about supporting small businesses to thrive, by utilising her skills and experience to develop processes, systems and strategies for small businesses to become more efficient. You know how there are never enough hours in the day and you don’t know where to start, Liz will show you how to maximise your time and discover who is best to do what and when. Her promise is more profit, more time and more fulfilment. Liz is a Chartered Accountant with a Masters in Forensic Accounting, with more than 15 years of finance experience across various industries (including government) and has called Gippsland home for the past 5 years.

She works with small business across a number of industries including primary producers, artisan producers, retailers, services, tradies, helping them to thrive in their business. Please get in touch if you want to work with Liz in 2022.

@lizfleming_theefficiencycoach