Meet Common Grounds Member Liz Fleming
The Grants Club was born out of my passion for helping small businesses to get ahead, grow and expand so they can live the life the envisaged when they took the plunge into the world of working for themselves. I’m all about businesses thriving, not just surviving!
I ventured into the world of self-employment during lockdown in August 2020 with the aim of using my skills and experience from 15 years of a busy corporate life in finance (including a couple of years in government agencies). It was here that my eyes were opened to the world of government funding and grant opportunities for small businesses, that nobody seemed to know about.
I work with time poor small business owners with a growth mindset, to help navigate the world of grants, to become ‘grants ready’ and to be successful in securing funds for their businesses to help them grow, expand and thrive. I help businesses to get clear about their growth strategies through my deep-dive brainstorming sessions so they can further develop their proposed projects and ideas as part of their growth plans. I work with you to guide, lead and support you through this process in a structured and efficient way, because I know we’re all so busy wearing so many hats in our business and trying to do everything ourselves. Getting help and support is important for everyone.
I’m also a Chartered accountant, which actually fits beautifully with grants as you’re (normally) requesting money for a project, so we need to understand our financial numbers in our business so that we can take full advantage of the grant opportunities that exist in Australia.
Has your business applied for a grant before? Were you successful? Are you ready to apply for your next grant? Or do you have absolutely no idea where to start?
My business offerings are bespoke and tailored grants and strategies services for my clients that provide solutions to this strategy and grants challenges they may have in their business.
From my experience in this space, Government Grants in Australia is a hidden economy, across all three levels of government – federal, state and local council. It’s my aim to support small businesses to become more aware that this funding is available and to become ‘grants ready’ to be prepared to apply for these grants in the normally-short timeframes.
I have created my online quiz ‘Are You Grants Ready?’ which will help you to work out how grants ready you and your business are. It’s all about being prepared and doing the work to be successful. Everyone is at different stages in their business and that’s totally fine.
You can check out my FREE QUIZ
Business owners also don’t know what they don’t know so it’s my mission to help them to better understand the grants ecosystem in Australia.
After working with hundreds of small businesses across Australia I’ve learned that every business is different, with different aspirations and goals and different projects and ways of doing things. This is why I suggest the best thing to do to learn more about how grants can help your business is to Book a 20-minute Discovery Call with me so we can have a chat about your business so I can learn more about your business and see how grants might be able to help.
I also run a fortnightly online workshop where I share with you my proven process of the seven steps to writing successful grant applications. It’s a-jam packed online workshop with plenty of golden nuggets and real life examples of what to do to improve your grant writing skills [or decide that it’s something you’re going to outsource].
The more you know about the grants ecosystem and the process that is involved to make an application the easier it will be. I have an 85% success rate when it comes to grants and I have submitted 100% of my clients grant applications on time. Nobody wants to be missing any deadlines when it comes to being in the running for grant funds to assist with growing your business.
If you’re a business, not-for-profit or community groups, it’s likely that at some point there will be grants available for growth and expansion in the form of project funding, so it’s important to understand the grants ecosystem that is relevant to you and your organisation – so let’s chat!