The federal government is expected to pump about 28 million dollars into grant program for businesses in rural areas. Many Montana businesses will qualify to tap into those funds.

"It's called the Rural Business Development Grant Program and it's actually a result of the 2014 Farm Bill," Business and Cooperative Director for Montana USDA Rural Development Brent Donnelly. "Montana is a very rural state, this program is available for  population bases of 50,000 or less, which is the entire state of Montana with the exceptions of Billings, Great Falls, and Missoula."

It is important to note that only the cities of Missoula, Great Falls and Billings do not qualify, businesses in the rest of Missoula County, for example, can still try to access funds.

The grant targets emerging businesses with less than one million in revenue and less than 50 employees, however, the time to submit a grant request is short.

"We can participate in technical assistance projects, this grant program works well for that: that would be your business planning and marketing plans, pro forma financial statements and feasibility studies... that sort of thing," Donnelly said. "Then also, training associated with technical assistance.  The program came out kind of a little bit later in our fiscal year, because of the timing of the Farm Bill, so the window is pretty short, this is the time to put a project together."

Donnelly said that the amount of money allocated for Montana has still not been determined and that the deadline is expected to be within the next 60 days.

 

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