5 Grants Entrepreneurs Should Know About For Q2

As we head into the second quarter of the year, it’s the perfect time to refocus, realign, and reenergize your professional goals. Whether you’re building a small business, launching a creative venture, or leveling up your side hustle, a well-timed grant could be the funding boost you need to make meaningful progress.

To help you stay on track and power through the rest of the year, here are some Q2 grant opportunities worth exploring.

The BOMESI Accelerator powered by GM is a grant program focused on increasing the visibility and sustainability of diverse and Black-owned media companies. Across 12 weeks, the accelerator program focuses on key areas including infrastructure, audience, ecosystem building and increasing total investment. 

Since beginning in 2020, the program itself has provided over $500,000 in funding to 21 founders. Their mission through the program is to support with revenue generation and sustainability, and also to support with partnerships and community engagement. 

Those awarded with the grant will receive the following:

• $25,000 funding package, with $15,000 in direct financial support and $10,000 in strategic services to help scale your media business
• Guidance from BOMESI’s network of experts
• 12 weeks of programming
• Connections to launch your business forward
• 1:1 mentorship & professional guidance
• Meet media buyers and account leads at major brands and agencies

They run multiple cohorts per year and the deadline for Cohort 4 is March 31. To learn more about the BOMESI Accelerator, visit their website. 

Kirabo Equity is a fintech platform offering a $5,000 cash grant for founders who are in need of support to grow their business. As an organization they focus on providing capital to excluded communities to create more inclusive and equitable opportunities, and fighting economic barriers.

Those awarded the grant will also receive early access to Kirabo Equity’s App and a business coaching session. There is no restriction of business category to apply, they focus on community focused solutions across all industries. 

The early application deadline is April 7 with the final deadline on May 30. For more information, visit Kirabo Equity’s website

The Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant is a fantastic program for writers completing an original book-length project that requires depth, time and extensive resources. Where often the advance on a publishing deal may run dry throughout the research project, the organization recognizes the importance of finishing these projects and how they shape the readers’ view of the world, even when often a change of direction is required. 

Since the program was launched in 2016, dozens of books have been supported. Examples quoted on their website include Sarah M. Broom’s The Yellow House, George Packer’s Our Man; Kristen Radtke’s Seek You; Andrea Elliot’s Invisible Child; and Meghan O’Rourke’s The Invisible Kingdom.’

This grant is open to a wide range of nonfiction writing projects, including personal essays, criticism, graphic nonfiction, memoir, science writing, biography, and cultural or political reportage — so long as the work is intended for a general adult audience. However, projects in self-help, historical fiction, or those geared toward children or young adults are not eligible.

To qualify, your project must be under contract with a publisher based in the U.S., Canada, or the United Kingdom by April 23. For full eligibility details and application guidelines, visit the grant’s official website.

The Awesome foundation has distributed $1,000 micro grants and has funded over 7201 projects since 2009. They award the grants monthly and do not fund any specific category, but their website states that they invest in experimental and surprising projects across a wide range of industries from tech to the arts to community development.

Applications are on a rolling basis and you can find out more on their website. 

The Amber Grant is a program run by WomensNet that chooses women-owned businesses as recipients on a monthly basis. They have a $10,000 Amber Grant, a $10,000 Startup Grant and a $10,000 Business Grant which are all open for applications.

Their business category also has themes which rotate every month. For Q2, the themes are sustainability, mental and emotional support, business support service and animal services. At the end of the year, all winners are eligible to be selected for a further $25,000 grant, of which three are awarded.

To find out more, visit their website.