As a small business owner in Canada, you’re probably heard about the government handing out small business grants in Canada?

If not, the Canadian government has billions of dollars which they disburse via different levels of the Canadian government in order to fund small business owners and entrepreneurship.

Ultimately improving the Canadian economy by creating jobs!

Before you can determine if your small business may be eligible for small business grants in Canada, it’s a good idea to learn a bit more about how this type of funding really works!

Small Business Grants in Canada

Most individuals who’ve considered obtaining funding from the govenrmetn at one point or another, have considered small business grants.

They are the “most popular” programs to apply to, since many of them are considered free money grants which never have to be paid back.

A huge bonus for businesses just getting started and where every dollar counts.

While small business grants are ideal, they are also conditionally approved by the various levels of the government. And generally speaking, not everyone is eligible for a small business grant in Canada.

While there are multiple factors that help a government funding agency decide if your small business may be eligible for, the below are just the few primary ones to consider:

• The location of your business (province and/or city)
• Your business industry
• The specific funding needs you have (what you need funding for and how much)
• The program application deadlines and timing

While these are the primary factors, it is important to know that each of the small business grants in Canada may be open to looking other factors as well such as your credit score, business history, personal history..etc

Secondary Application Factors

Before you apply for any funding; it’s important to consider that secondary factors that are a must in most cases. These include:

• Your Business Plan (you can’t and shouldn’t apply without one)
• A PitchDeck Presentation
• Clear explanation of your funding needs

As these are often very important and critical to the success of your small business grants application, let’s discuss in a bit more detail.

Your Business Plan

A business plan will be needed when you apply to any small business program offered by the government. These programs will want to see your business plan that provides them insight into your business model, your financials and that clearly shows your funding needs.

In most cases, applying to a small business grant program in Canada will get your application thrown out and denied.

If you don’t have a business plan as of yet, you can develop one using our Business Plan Builder Tool.

Your PitchDeck Presentation

Much like your business plan, most governmetn funding agencies and private investors want to see your business plan – but shorter and nicely summarize. This is where your PitchDeck comes in.

A short 1o to 15 slide presentation that summaries what your long business plan should do. In most cases, these governmetn agencies want to see this because “nobody has time to read a long plan”, especially when these agencies are known to get 100’s of applications per day.

If you don’t have a pitch deck presentation yet, our experts can help you make one – or you can use the Investor PitchDeck Tool right here.

A clear explanation of your funding needs

The one, major section where many entrepreneurs simply mess up when applying for small business grants in Canada is the explanation of your needs.

This is something that if you’re not comfortable doing, get expert help.

Many applications that are denied are often denied because of the funding need explanations.

When explaining your funding needs, you have to ensure that your funding needs are clearly explained, broken down to the specific needs, that you show an allocation of the funds and a priority list or time frame as to when the funds are needed by.