Welcome to Friday Funding Chats, your weekly accountability buddy in your small business funding journey. Every Friday we deliver top fund picks and tips to your inbox, saving you time and making your funding journey an empowering one.
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🤑 Top accelerators with grants attached
🤑 Insider tips on how a funding narrative changes the game
🤑 Need support to move forward? Book a call with me
In last week’s newsletter you loved this opportunity from We Are The Makers, so here it is again.
Accelerator Foundervine Breakthrough - For disabled entrepreneurs building businesses. Built to remove systemic barriers and amplify the strengths founders already hold, the programme offers expert-led support, tailored funding advice, and a powerful community of peers with lived experience. With access to a £21k funding pot via a pitch competition at the end.
Grant Reed Stop Dreaming, Start Building Fund - for 18-26 year old entrepreneurs, already trading for less than 3 years. You get £20,000 plus mentorship and a platform to promote your idea.
Accelerator Trading for Good (School for Social Entrepreneurs) - supporting social entrepreneurs in Milton Keynes (or serving the Milton Keynes area). You’ll get support to strengthen your income, with a match grant of £4k to get you out there.
These Top Opportunities were lifted from the Funding Opportunities Database, a unique listing of over 80 grants, awards, accelerators and other funding opportunities for your small business (with a focus on creatives and social & environmental impact). Upgrade for just £4 a month and get Friday Funding Chats Live, and interviews with founders who have funded.
I am often asked to mark grant applications and it has been the single biggest shift to my fundraising mindset to date. This is simply because being in the shoes of a funder, provides the most valuable framing for your grant applications. Let me explain.
The first grants and pitch competitions I applied for were some of my worst. I felt so confident about the challenge I was solving, and I was so passionate that my solution was unique and needed. But what I had in passion, I lacked in funding narrative. Your funding narrative is what you tell funders in order to make them want to fund it. Let’s be clear - it’s very different to the story you tell your customers and your clients. It took me a while to twig that there could be several overlapping stories, for each type of stakeholder. (A stakeholder is any person, group of people or other organisation that has an interest in the activities of a business.)
Once I figured this out, the game changed for me and I started gaining traction with my applications. Of course you need to stick to scoring criteria, but I also believe that your framing of your business is incredibly important. A funder needs to understand how their money will be spent, and how that spending will move the needle, not just for your business, but for wider societal and environmental issues.
Mistakes I see people make with their narrative;
They make it all about them - ‘This is my passion’, ‘I really need the money,’ ‘I need to pay myself.’ All of these statements are kind of a given. Yes we want to know that you are passionate, but not at the expense of precious word count limits. Your USP as a founder needs to be balanced with the value that you will bring your stakeholders and the funder.
They spend too much time talking about the ‘vision’ of the business - funders want to know that you will spend their money well in pursuit of a wider goal. If you spend most of your word count talking about your vision, or why your solution (product, service etc) is so amazing, you miss an opportunity to convince them to fund you.
They don’t convey traction well - if the grant is for ideas stage, then by all means, tell them your idea. If the grant has stipulated it wants businesses with early stage traction then tell them how you have early stage traction. This can be anything from email subscribers, social media followers, wait list sign ups, letters of intent (LOI) from prospective clients or suppliers, early sales or event attendees. Even if these numbers seem low to you, you are demonstrating that you made a start with what you had. This is much more convincing than telling a funder that they need to fund you to get started. In an age of free AI tools, landing page builders and social media, unfortunately this excuse no longer cuts it.
They don’t talk about their experience - even if you are completely new to this and have no idea what you are doing, you likely have lived experience or some experience of the problem you are solving. Or maybe in your previous role you were good at managing people, or organising events, or sales, or creating a social club etc. Dig deep because I promise there is something there to include.
They make it too professional or jargon filled - this is a tricky balance to strike because it is wholly dependent on what type of grant you are applying for. However, it’s always worth baring in mind that the person reading your grant has never heard of you, or your business, or the problem you are solving in the landscape you are solving it in. So break it down for them, be clear and avoid too much jargon (acronyms, industry specific terms etc). You likely won’t impress someone who feels clueless reading your application so it’s not worth the risk.
Having someone who isn’t in your business proof read your applications is always helpful to avoid a lot of these mistakes. But be prepared to be bad at this until you get good. Working on your funding narrative now so that you have information to draw on when that perfect opportunity comes up will save you time and sanity. But importantly, the narrative will get used more than you think; at networking events, when speaking to clients or at a random dinner party where the host’s spouse happens to be looking for exactly the thing you offer.
Do you read these emails and think ‘I don’t know where to start’? Or maybe you have started but find yourself stuck and in need of a fresh perspective in how your business makes money? I am now offering Funding Diagnostic Calls for small & micro business founder in need of a collaborate way to diagnose a new funding strategy.
We’ll explore your goals, process, challenges, and successes. I’ll as you focused questions to ensure we build a complete picture of your specific needs, helping you move past any roadblocks.
What to Expect:
You will leave the 50-minute call with:
A fresh perspective on your funding process, helping you to see it differently.
New possibilities and open doors for funding applications.
Clarity on a potential next step, including the option for a follow-up session to ensure you stay accountable and action your points.
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🎓 Do you have a small business community who could benefit from our knowledge and support? Reach out today to find out about our workshops, speaking and consultancy services. Contact Lucy
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