With the Federal and many State governments putting grants out to help the economy, create jobs and support business growth now is the time to ensure you keep an eye on these.
Some are open for as little as four weeks.
Be sure to allocate the responsibility to check grant websites at least once a month, to one person. They can pop a recurring reminder in their calendar, as well as sign up to the Business.gov.au newsletter (at the end of the home page).
There are often infrastructure grants to help businesses expand their capacity and sales reach. There may also be start-up grants, some related to export, and research and development (R&D) grants so it’s worth investing some time seeing what is available. Once you have submitted for one grant any future ones become much easier and less time-consuming.
Federal government grants in Australia
Here are three great sites to help you quickly see what the Federal government has on offer to help you fund your small business growth:
Grants in Tasmania
There are sector-based grants and if you are a growing business, business loans available from State Growth. If a bank will not fund your expansion then the Department of State Growth may. Check out the State Growth grants and funding opportunities page.
Funding to help with exports
The Export Market Development Grant (EMDG) has been around for decades, is pretty easy to secure and great support if you are serious about selling outside Australia.
Here is a brief summary of this grant:
- it is there to encourage small and medium-sized Australian businesses to develop export markets;
- income must be less than $50m a year;
- will reimburse up to 50% of eligible export promotion expenses above $5,000 (provided the total expenses are at least $15,000);
- the maximum grant you can receive in any financial year is $150,000 (that is, paid to you by the government); and
- provides up to eight grants to each eligible applicant (which means you can use the EMDG for eight financial years).
The business must have promoted one of the following:
- the export of goods or most services;
- inbound tourism;
- the export of intellectual property and know-how; or
- conferences and events held in Australia.
While not a grant, if you need to ship an order overseas and will struggle to fund the working capital due to even longer than usual payment terms, the Federal government can provide export loans for 6-12 months through their Export Finance Australia initiative.
This is an article for Business Blindspots Tasmania. To ensure you receive regular updates from expert business advisers across a range of areas follow our LinkedIn Group
