• When it comes to investment in your agency, the last thing you’d think of is government grants.
• For Louise Towler, this couldn’t be further from the truth – and she says it’s simply a case of knowing where to look for this financial help.
• She’ll be talking us through the local grants and enterprise schemes her agency has benefited from in recent years, and how you can do the same.
With an ever changing cabinet and multiple world crises happening all at once, it’s not totally naïve to think that there isn’t much government help out there when it comes to growing your business.
But there is – you just have to look in the right places.
“The money is there, they have the budget, and they are desperate to use it. Because if they don’t, they don’t keep it,” says Louise Towler, managing director of Indigo Tree.
In the past two years or so, Louise has been able to propel her agency into new pastures by taking advantage of local grants and enterprise schemes.
Since setting off on this route at the end of 2020, Louise has earned the following in funded grants:
- £4k from the ‘Respond, Adapt & Strengthen’ grant from Hertfordshire Growth Hub.
- £39k in funding from University of Hertfordshire towards accessibility projects.
- £6k from the ‘Building Back Better’ grant.
- £50k from the ‘Women in Innovation’ competition award.
- £25k in ’Sustainability Accelerator’ funding from University of Hertfordshire and local enterprise partnership.
And that’s not even all of it.
Along this path, Louise has also picked up £7.5k’s worth of business growth consultancy and training, legal advice on securing her agency’s IP, a paid trademark, B-Corp consultancy, and a complete service design course which resulted in around £8k of discovery work – AND it’s helped her win more work from her clients too.
“In the last 12 months, we’ve had about £60k’s worth of business from clients, just from me passing on information about grants they could apply for.”
Come along to hear Louise dive deep into the grants she’s obtained for her agency, how she won them, and the impact it’s had on her business. As always, don’t forget to bring along some questions!