Full Careers

i need to find good sources for grants to individuals?

i would like to take the skills that i used in social work(counseling) and training developement and expand my career to incude the certification of Life Coach. I need assistance to pay the cost. I see a great need for this service in my communities.

Public Comments

1. www.grants.gov
2. Go to the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) http://www.cfda.gov and Grants.gov - these are two sites created by the federal government to provide transparency and information on grants. But you'd be hard pressed to find any grant that would support a for-profit venture such as a life coach business. It is hard to find grants for individuals, harder still to find one that would support a for-profit business. Most of the federal grants are given to specific target groups with specific requirements (e.g. minority business owners involved in transportation related contracts emanating from DOT - Grant#20.905 Disadvantaged Business Enterprises Short Term Lending Program Grants are also often given to non profit groups or organizations involved in training or other similar activities (grant 59.043 Women's Business Ownership Assistance that are given to those who will create women's business center that will train women entrepreneurs Even SBA does NOT give out grants. From the SBA website http://www.sba.gov/expanding/grants.html... "The U.S. Small Business Administration does not offer grants to start or expand small businesses, although it does offer a wide variety of loan programs. (See http://www.sba.gov/financing for more information) While SBA does offer some grant programs, these are generally designed to expand and enhance organizations that provide small business management, technical, or financial assistance. These grants generally support non-profit organizations, intermediary lending institutions, and state and local governments." For private grants, you may want to check the Foundation Center's Foundation Grants for Individuals Online. It's a subscription based website ($9.95 per month) but their opening blurb only says that the database is ideal for "students, artists, academic researchers, libraries and financial aid offices." Entrepreneurs are apparently not one of them, so I take it they also don't have listings of private foundations who give grants to would-be entrepreneurs.