A Rant About Grants

Who spends $3000 to get information on getting grants, but will not invest that much into their business instead?

We’ve been getting grant applications lately from people who are TOTALLY unprepared to operate a business, and completely uncommitted to their business! How do we know? Because they have NOT done what is OBVIOUS to even TRY to start their business!

Instead, they have come to our website, filled out our grant application, and tried to persuade us that they are deserving of a business grant, when they have not done anything to even start their business. Not all of our applicants, but many of them.

Here is the reason I am so frustrated over this:

They are not even READING what the grant IS!

We are getting people who are asking for MONEY, even though our site clearly says, in many places, NO MONEY IS AWARDED.

Most of them do NOT need a website! Don’t even WANT a website, but since they did not read the grant information, they are clueless about what they are even applying for!

So these people, who want an offline business, which they could bootstrap if they were smart about it, are sitting there talking about their dream, applying for grants so someone else will give them their business. Most of them could get started if they’d just start doing something. Start small. Start bit by bit and work toward it. Do SOMETHING productive other than just running around looking for someone to fund it for you.

The great irony is that some of them have PAID MONEY (often a GREAT DEAL of money) for information on getting grants. In some cases, it was enough money that they could have started their business if they had been smart about what they spent it on.

It is peculiar to me that they will spend money on a supposed shortcut, but they will not spend the same amount of money on a more sure way of doing it.

So I’m puzzled at human nature today. If you just stick your hand out and expect it to be filled, no one will ever consider you to be deserving. You’ve gotta do what you are capable of doing. I am going to have to find a polite way of communicating to these people that they got taken on the grant information, and help them to understand what it takes to REALLY have a business.

‘Cause I ain’t going to hand you money. And I’m only gonna hand you a website if you’ve worked hard already and can indicate to me that you will actually do something worthwhile with it.