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ans Serif">Your business needs money to get off the ground, develop a product, or create a strategic plan - you think there might be funding out there, but figuring out what to do next is just a bit too much. Have you considered using a grants consultant? If you want to do it yourself, what should you consider?

ans Serif">If your business is just starting up, or wanting to expand, there are a number of grants available which can help you out. Grants particularly applicable to small businesses are available from Industry New Zealand (INZ) and the Foundation for Research Science and Technology (FRST). Those from FRST are targeted

at businesses needing to increase their technological capability, while those from INZ provide support for such activities as strategic planning, financial planning and planning of ecommerce development.

ans Serif">So are you eligible for any of these grants? And which one might be right for you? How do you fill out the several pages of forms? What added extras might make your application more likely to succeed than other applications? The answer to these questions might be to bring in a specialist grants consultant.

ans Serif">Grants consultants can assist in a variety of ways. They can talk you through whether your project is appropriate for a particular grant. An initial half-hour consultation might be available for the price of a cup of coffee and a muffin if you are persuasive enough! This could be the best value coffee and muffin you ever bought - you can spend a long time filling in forms to find that the grants scheme you are applying for just isn't the right thing for you. Grants consultants can suggest other schemes that you haven't considered. They can talk you through filling in the forms.

ans Serif">If you need more help, grants consultants can interview you to get the appropriate information and then do the form filling in for you while you get on with running the business. They develop relationships with grants providers which smooth the way for your project when it lands on someone's desk. Grant applications need to be considered in context - of the organisation and people that they are being targeted at. A grants consultant will help you create the right context, not just right words.