I am having a really hard time trying to find grants. Goverment or otherwise. Does anyone have any advise?

Have you looked into Idea Cafe's own Small Business Grants?

Just click to Idea Cafe's Grant Center from the navigation link on the left.
We offer several grants throughout the year, so one is usually open for applications.

Be sure to read about our prior grant winners, as you explore the Grant Center.

Cheers,

Cyberhost at Idea Cafe
The Fun Place for Serious Business(sm)

A substantial source of our company's business is writing grants. (No this is not a plug for business, we are pretty booked). The fact is that, late night ads about FREE GOVERNMENT MONEY to the contrary, grants are very hard to get. As noted above, there are grants for new technology, and our company has received a few of those. They take a lot of time and effort to write. We usually budget 160 staff hours for a grant of $300,000 - $500,000. That may sound like a good payoff, but we have been doing this for 20 years. I think it would take a first-timer far longer.

Most grants are restricted to non-profit organizations, state or local governments and educational institutions.

Why should the government fund you to start up a restaurant when there are restaurants starting up every day? I don't say this to be heartless but simply because it is the first question that a grant reviewer is going to ask. Anyone who would take your money to write a grant for a restaurant is very likely trying to rip you off because the odds of obtaining funding for something like this are very, very low.

AnnMaria DeMars, Ph.D., Vice-president
(310) 717-9089 FAX (310) 496-2068
www.spiritlakeconsulting.com

"I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is,above all to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all. "