You walk in on Monday morning, ready to take on the week. You listened to your favorite podcast, playlist or morning talk show on the way to work and even got to the office without spilling a drop of coffee on your shirt. It’s going to be a great day!!
Then your plant manager walks in. Joe has that look on his face. He explains that maintenance found an issue with your biggest running piece of equipment. It will take six weeks to get parts in and the repairs will require a week of downtime. The cost of maintaining the equipment while waiting for parts and the repair itself, including labor and parts, is $100,000.
OK, maybe not such a good day after all.
Joe then offers an alternative. This machine, while being the most productive one that you currently have, is also a maintenance nightmare. Hours upon hours of overtime have been required to keep it pumping out parts. Joe did some research and found a newer, more energy efficient model. According to the literature and information from other companies in the industry, this model would produce 30% more product with a 20% energy savings over the existing machine. The new model costs $500,000.
You just had “the talk” with your CFO last Friday. While it looked like you were going to make a profit this quarter, you really need to keep an eye on equipment expenditures. You run the numbers quickly in your head, and the return on investment isn’t there to justify the purchase. You get ready to tell Joe that he needs to issue purchase orders for replacement parts and talk to scheduling about working the downtime in. Then you remember hearing about your utility company’s incentives for equipment that provides energy savings at the trade association meeting last week. Free money!
You let Joe know you will get back to him by the end of the day.
I have worked with many companies in this and similar situations. They have the potential to expand their processing capacity and revenue by purchasing new equipment or by training their employees. However, the numbers just don’t make sense.
If you find yourself in the situation above, where do you go to find “free money” to help increase ROI and justify expenditures?
There are five great resources that I recommend to companies looking for funding:
- Local Economic Development Groups – Every state has an economic development group (it is the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity in Illinois, for example). You can find this group, and likely a local department representative, by searching for your state’s economic development department on Google. Call your local representative, explain your project and ask for help. It never hurts to also check with your county and city officials. Sometimes they have access to incentives, particularly if you are in a development or economically targeted zone.
- Competitors – While this may seem unorthodox, researching your competitors websites or doing an internet search for the competitor’s name and the word “grant” can result in identifying funding for your next project. Typically, companies or funding organizations will publicize grant awards. You can typically find out the amount of the grant and the funding program and then request information on your own behalf.
- Trade Associations – Talk to other business owners about your project and see if they have received funding for similar projects. If they aren’t competitors, they will likely share this information with you. Never negate the power of networking!
- Google – Who doesn’t love Google? I think I use it at least ten times a day to find information. You can Google “energy project incentives, {insert your local utility here}” and you will likely be linked quickly to local energy incentives. You can Google “grant funding, equipment, Illinois” to find links to the economic development incentives. You may have to comb through pages of results, but this is still a fairly effective method of finding out basic funding information.
- Lakeview Consulting (me) – Shameless self-promotion alert! If you don’t have the time or knowledge to find and access appropriate funding sources for your next project, I can help. I have assisted many non-profit and for-profit companies with identifying appropriate funding for their projects (see testimonials from past clients here). Once you share some basic project details, I can research funding, complete the grant application and help you manage your grant program.
Spread the word! I am always astounding by how some of the most well-connected companies don’t know that funding is available. What you don’t know can most definitely hurt you! Contact me to discuss your company’s specific situation further or to present grant funding information to your trade association or industry group!
Share your funding experience with others by answering the question below! This may spur ideas and get a great conversation going!
Question: Have you been a grant funding recipient? What kind of project received funding?