EU Subsidies (Grants)?

[cufflinks]

To our EU members - I keep getting emails from this organization - must be from some business directory database - any truth to any of this?  Find it hard to believe that any USA business would qualifiy unless we moved or opened major facilities in EU (Ireland or Switzerland?):

Or is this some new fangled internet scam to sell bogus EU grants directories, "training" and services?

From: Dominique Guillard [mailto:dominique.guillard@info.welcomeurope.com]
Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 1:28 PM
To: mike
Subject: Mike, 450 subsidies : but which one ?

Dear Mike,

Recently, you have expressed your interest in Welcomeurope training sessions. 
Welcomeurope has been specializing in European subsidies for more than 10 years, to make your obtaining of subsidies easier, 4 training sessions will be organized :

"How to access European Commission grants?", 24th-25th, October ,2011, in Brussels,

"How to manage a project funded by the European Commission?", 26th, October 2011, in Brussels,
"How to set up and formalise a European partnership?", 9th,November, 2011, in Paris,
"How to draw up a budget for a European grant application?", 16-17, February, 2011, in Brussels
Last registered :Noveltis, European Broadcasting Union, Maastricht University, The Cyprus Institute, Quintiles, ...
 

More INFORMATIONS

Click here now to receive the detailed training programmes.

Do not hesitate to contact me for further information :

By phone +33 (0)1 42 54 60 64

By email training@welcomeurope.com

I'm looking forward to welcoming you to one of our training sessions in the very near future.

Best regards,

Marine Rossi
Registration Training- Customer Officer

Welcomeurope
38 rue Léon F
75018 Paris
Tél : +33 (0) 1 42 54 60 64
Fax : +33 (0) 1 42 54 70 04
www.welcomeurope.com

[andrewfi]

There are many kinds of funding and support options available through the EU. I am sure that some funding would be available to be used through a US firm - for example, EU Structural Funds provide funding that is designed to improve things like infrastructure: roads, buildings, utilities. The funding might not go directly into your pocket but toward the overarching project.
The trick here is to identify projects, round up partners/beneficiaries, design and write the proposal and then carry out the work.

There is also money to encourage new business/employment and while I am certain that a US registered firm would not be eligible an EU registered firm would be.

A downside is that much of the money available requires matching funds and, for example, with Structural Funds, at least when I had anything to do with the stuff, you could not pile up grants to get the 'deposit' you had to have real money as cash or debt to set against your matched support. It makes 'packaging' a little more challenging.

With hundreds of opportunities to get money I am sure that there is some that might be available to assist your business to meet its goals.

That said there is considerable competition for most funding and preference, from what I have seen, seems to be to support local industry and business doing work locally. In the end though getting the money would come down to the qualities of the proposal and the capabilities of the stakeholders.

If you are interested in getting some EU money then I guess a weekend of Googling will probably open some mental doors for you.

[cufflinks]

Andrew - in all sincerity and respecting your considerable UK EU/FSU business experience - is one to assume that this does NOT raise immediate red flags with you and may be worthy of further investigation?

May I ask your opinion of this organization www.welcomeurope.com and if there are others you might suggest?

As economics are part of supporting an FSUW and future family perhaps some of the business oriented members might be interested?  If for real could be a potential way of serving the EU markets and building a diversified EU cash flow in case Obama buries our economy in the interim coming up on the next presidential elections.

[Chris]

What Andrew states is correct, there are possibly hundreds if not thousands of European Grants available, however, what Welcome Europe are doing like so many others are not telling you the nitty gritty of obtaining these grants, (you have to do that donkey work yourself) but usually for a fee following registration with a subscriber service, which you will no doubt pay for, tell you what is available and point you in the right direction.

There is  no doubt grants are there, for various projects, but again, in most cases you will require at least matching funds, this is not free money that you can obtain just by filling in a few forms, there will be a lot more to it than that.

Example, we have in the UK an organisation called Business Link, if you know what to ask for and how to do it you can get funding for all types of things in connection with running a business or setting up  a new business, sometimes funds/grants are available for certain business expenses, ie purchase of IT equipment etc, I have just completed one of these form filling exercises for one of my customers, but Business Link will only fund the Training element of the transaction, not for the initial purchase of say the hard/software, the rules change regularly, the funding changes regularly and there is sometimes only a short window of opportunity in which to apply for certain things. Its the same with many European Grants, many of which require matching funds and the promise of employment to others, via an EU Corporation.

I have not read the Welcome Europe site, but it wouldn't surprise me if they are just selling a service, a service that flags up grants that may be available and where you obtain the forms etc, the rest is up to the individual to sort out. There are many others doing the same, they make money from selling information, only!

If you really want to find out what European Grants are available, then this and this would be  my first ports of call, and then move on from there.

[andrewfi]

I have no knowledge of this company and so can make no recommendations or suggest any cautions in their regard.
As to other training firms, again, I have nothing to offer. When I needed to learn about this stuff I sat myself down, read a lot of stuff, made a load of notes, talked to a few people and made a load of phone calls.

Did you contact this company as they said you did or did they contact you out of the blue on a fishing mission? The latter, in and of itself, in this context, would serve to raise one's guard.

If you want to get involved in this then you, and anyone else, needs to know that there is already a very significant and competitive industry devoted to packaging and promoting EU funds to potential end beneficiaries. It is not a case of people with too much money chucking money at barefoot folks who need a leg up.

As with many other endeavors, there is more profit to be made from selling shovels and training on how to use them than is ever available to those who receive the training and set off digging for gold. However good the training will be they will miss out some important aspects that will require you to pay, to these guys, or somebody else, on an ongoing basis for the 'missing information'. That'll be their ongoing back-end income.

[cufflinks]

Thanks Chris and Andrew - there are a lot of hucksters selling how to get grants for yourself and business - one even gets you to sign up for $29.00 then tries to charge people every month on their credit cards - I know a few who had to cancel their cards to stop the charges.

That said pretty much the same in the USA for matching funds for Grants - every once in a while a jobs grant comes out that will actually allow a for profit LLC or Inc to apply - yet still the Lion's share go to Academia or R&D related companies.  All SBA loans must be one to one cash or 50% equity collateralized as the SBA only guarantees the loans and any honest bank will tell you they must have you sign over your home in case the economy takes a dive and the business falters.

Foundations make billion$ worth of grants but due to US tax regulations only to 501C3 registered non-profits.  Takes quite a bit to get a non-profit approved but can be a license to print money (fat salaries etc - the President of the Boston Food Banks just gave herself via her "board" a $150K raise last year to nearly $400K!)  but need a base track record to build upon for one to get 501C3 approvals.  No way to build "equity" for your heirs with a non-profit. 

Thus the interest in the EU "sudsidies" - they sent me several emails like I said from some business directory or other.

That said grants are always preferrable to loans and the teaching hospital complex I worked for in the 90's had an entire building dedicated to fund raising - at Harvard Medical on Longwood Ave it was referred to as the "development" building - quite fancy Atrium for wine and cheese gatherings of donors as the entire 50+ building campus teaching and R&D hospitals complex was one big conglomeration of 501C3 "Not for Profits" never saw so many multi-millionaires in one place over 11,000 IT users and over 4,000 MDs

Andrew - not quite the "barefoot folks" yet

Chris favorited the links - thanks...