Business Starting Grants

How do I apply for a small business start up grant in Alberta ?

I am a female, age 24, I want to start up a retail store where a portion of profits go to local charity's. I plan on using used/recycled material for all/most of the fixtures for my business. Also I plan not to use plastic bags, only recyclable bags. I have tried looking online and can not find anything. I would get a loan but my credit is less then perfect and I have no assets to put up. I would need about $30,000 but could possibly manage to do it with less. Thank-you

Public Comments

1. My hubby and I started up our business here in alberta in october and were unsuccessful in finding any grants available, even for oil related businesses. We searched for months, contacting government programs and officials but there is just no money there despite what you find on the internet says. For new business in particular there are no funds and we were told this by an official in a government program. We ended up going after an angel investor who is now a partner in the business. It isn't ideal to what we wanted and we got less then half of the 100 000.00 we needed but we weren't interested in putting our house and vehicles up as collateral for a loan. The government does however have great rates on loans and would be much easier to access then the banks. They are very sticky about giving out money in the current market. PLEASE take the advise and make sure you have money put away before taking the leap. Dispite our solid buisness plan and long list of client we are not seeing the money we thought we would at the beginning. Fortunatly we have enough income from my two jobs and the company to break even and now are just starting to see a profit. Good luck and if you have any more questions just drop me an email.
2. Check out http://www.business.gov/ for official information for your state. Best of luck. Eoin
3. I used this site for my reference http://01tech.net/absolute-gold-business-plan-articles/