Free Support Tool for Councils to Help their Local Businesses

As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on businesses across the UK deepens, the ability to signpost available funding to organisations in need has never been more urgent.

The Office for National Statistics estimates that a quarter of businesses in the UK have temporarily closed or paused trading due to the lockdown, which required that all non-essential shops and leisure activities closed from 23 March.

Local authorities are “leading local efforts to support businesses as they try and cope with the coronavirus outbreak” according to the Local Government Association, but are having to deal with the scale of the challenge at a time when many staff have had to adjust to home working. Ensuring that they are able to promote available funding to all the businesses in their area which are eligible is a real concern for councils.

To meet this need GRANTfinder – the UK’s leading provider of funding information to the business, voluntary and public sector – has announced today that it is offering all councils six months’ free access to a new online funding portal.

Based on the highly successful Open 4 Business solution, which already allows many local authorities across the UK to support local businesses in their areas to identify funding to succeed and grow, the new simplified portal offers an easy way for councils to signpost available funding. The portal is updated regularly with new local, regional and national funding announcements and can be easily searched by businesses on the basis of their industry, region and business size. The portal then provides information on how to apply for funding and contact funders directly.

All councils need to do to access the tool is contact GRANTfinder and express their interest. The portal can then be quickly activated for their local area and will be accessible until 31 October 2020.

Click here for more information and to register for access.