2010 Rural Business Enterprise Grant Program Announced
03/15/2010 — Geoff Chinnock

The USDA Rural Development has just announced the 2010 Rural Business Enterprise Grants (RBEG).  The RBEG is designed to provide technical assistance to businesses; establish or re-capitalize a relending program; conduct training programs in connection with technical assistance; and create, expand, and operate rural distance learning networks.  Other funding activities may also be eligible, so contact your USDA RD office.

The following is a brief summary; for full details, see the official Program Overview and Eligibility Announcement.

See information below regarding:

General information:

  • Eligible applicants: Public bodies and private nonprofit corporations, serving rural areas.  For-profit businesses and individuals are NOT eligible applicants.  To see if you are in a rural location, enter your address here.  The businesses to be benefited (not the applicant) must employ 50 or fewer employees and have less than $1 million in projected gross revenues.  At least 51 percent of the outstanding interest in any project must have membership or be owned by US citizens.
  • Funding limits: No maximum amount available, though smaller grant requests are given priority.
  • Ineligible activities: Funds cannot be used for funding comprehensive, area-wide-type planning, financing agriculture production, grants made directly to private businesses; certain other activities (see notice for full details).
  • Two-step process: Funding decisions are made on the basis of two rounds of applications.

Project examples:

  • Technical assistance to businesses (i.e. market research, product or service development, feasibility studies, etc.).
  • Establish or re-capitalize a relending program (provide gap financing to small businesses, in conjunction with other funding sources or loan programs).
  • Conduct training programs in connection with technical assistance, ensure that the unemployed or underemployed successfully make the transition to employment.
  • Create, expand, and operate rural distance learning networks or rural learning programs that provide educational instruction or job training instruction.
  • Other funding activities may be eligible.  Contact your USDA Rural Development Local Office if you have questions.

Priorities:

  • Applicants must demonstrate a successful history and track record of administering economic and community development financial and technical assistance programs designed to promote small rural business development.
  • Scoring preference is given for the following (for a full description of the scoring criteria see the full announcement):
    • Rural communities (projects in lower population areas will score higher)
    • Economic conditions (projects in areas of high unemployment will score higher)
    • Median household income in area of proposed project (lower income will score higher)
    • Written evidence of commitment from small business that startup or expansion will occur as a result of the grant
    • Matching funds (matching funds are NOT required, but applications with matching funds will score higher depending on the amount of the match)
    • Number of jobs created or saved (the greater number, the higher the score)
    • Amount of the grant request (the lower amount of the grant request the higher the score)

Key dates:

Pre-applications due: April 12, 2010

Final application due: 30 days after receipt of notice that pre-application was accepted

How to apply:

Read the full notice (link at the top) for criteria required in the pre-application.

Matching funds:

Matching funds are not required, but proposals demonstrating a strong match will score higher.

Grant writing:

Read about our grant writing services and our over 90% success rate.  We have written several RBEG grants over the years with a 100% success rate (RBEGs only).  If interested, please contact us for more information or a fee estimate.

Have questions?  Give us a call or email us.