Boosting Female Founders: 10 tips on how to apply for the grant

If you’re a female founder, no doubt you’ve been eyeing off the Boosting Female Founders (BFF) grant opportunity. In fact, you might be thinking about doing everything humanely possible to get your very own slice of the $11.6 million pie.

The idea certainly sounds like one that is a no-brainer.

That’s particularly so when your slice could amount to between $100,000-$400,000 — and perhaps even more for those of you who identify as Indigenous, CALD, living with a disability, or are living in rural or regional areas. For female business owners, many of whom have experienced gendered disadvantages in starting, growing and scaling their enterprising visions, securing this opportunity would certainly represent a tangible and game-changing step towards powering the next stage of business growth.

But as one of the most hotly contested grants of the year and a success rate of 1.5% out of 2500 applications last year, there are certainly a few eligibility caveats to the Boosting Female Founders grant that you’ll want to pay close attention to before you even consider setting your fingers to a keyboard.

Just for starters, you’ll want to make sure that your business is:

1. An early stage, innovative and disruptive start-up that has been in operations for less than 5 years with a turnover of less than $20m across the last three financial years;

2. Working on a new novel product, service or business model;

3. Scalable. In other words, has capability to grow rapidly and expand into new domestic and international markets;

4. Majority female owned — you’ll need to hold a minimum stake of 51% in the business as a female founder; and

5. Capable of funding at least 50% of the eligible project expenditure

Assuming that you’ve been able to tick off on all the above as a minimum (and double checked the grant guidelines just to be sure you can tick off on all other eligibility criteria!) your next mission is to develop a golden application that, let’s just put it this way, has the BFF assessors sitting back in awe of your growth and scaling potential.

To help you do exactly that, we’ve come up with ten top tips that will help you get your BFF Stage 1 application down pat. So, brew up a coffee (or whatever beverage takes your fancy!) and settle in to find out everything you need to know about creating a winning BFF application:

TIP #1: Have a clear vision for your business

After interviewing 2019 Boosting Female Founders winners Laura Youngson (Ida Sports) and Zoe Condliffe (She’s A Crowd) plus working with 2021 winners Bianca Tarrant (Our Cow) and Shivani Gopal (The Remarkable Women); we saw that their applications all had one thing in common.

That is, a crystal-clear picture of where they wanted their business to go, what would be needed to get there, and exactly how their proposals would play a tangible role in sustainably scaling. All four also demonstrated an existing market foothold with strong expansion potential, alongside a validated product or service.

TIP #2: Prioritise your supporting documents

With many funding bodies automatically discarding up to 30% of applications based on ineligibility (including lack of supporting documents!), you certainly want to ensure you’ve got the required documents well and truly ready to upload once you’ve arrived at the finish line.

Our advice? Check the grant guidelines, make a checklist of supporting documents that you’ll need to upload with your application, and get cracking on organising them before you even start writing.

TIP #3: Engage your stakeholders early

Even as you gather your supporting assets, we recommend having a chat to all stakeholders that will be involved in or affected by your proposal.

This will be invaluable to you in understanding — and then articulating — exactly what activities, equipment and finances will be needed to deliver your proposal. It’ll also help you identify exactly how much funding you’ll need to request and co-contribute.

TIP #4: Position, position, position…

Given that BFF assessors are very much akin to savvy investors searching for strong ROI opportunities, the strategic positioning of your case for funding couldn’t be more important.

We recommend a laser focus on highlighting exactly how your proposal both aligns with and supports the BFF grant’s objectives of:

1. Boosting the economy;
2. Bringing new innovative products and services to market; and
3. Increasing job creation.

It’ll also be important to highlight the infrastructure you already have in place that will support scaling.

TIP #5: Leverage data

Data sets the scene and inspires confidence among grant assessors, particularly when it comes to confirming your proposal’s inherent value, potential, and viability. More importantly, it’ll help paint a picture of your business’ market readiness and capacity to scale.

The good news? You’re probably already sitting on a goldmine of valuable data just waiting to be strategically weaved throughout your application.

Think things like your business’ market research, reach statistics, and growth projections.

TIP #6: Shine a spotlight on yourself as a female founder

The Boosting Female Founders grant opportunity was created as a response to the additional challenges faced by women when it comes to launching, growing and scaling a business.

For this reason, we recommend shining a spotlight on the challenges you’ve faced as a female founder, and exactly how the BFF funding being requested would help you overcome these challenges.

TIP #7: Pay attention to the details

You’ll want to keep in mind that the project description, key activities, milestones, KPIs, and budget will be used to create a grant agreement if you make it through both Stages 1 and 2 of the application process. You’ll also have to submit progress reports throughout the delivery of your proposal.

It’s a good idea to make sure that any proposal details that you present are not only accurate, but also realistic and achievable.

TIP #8: Check for and maintain consistency

There’s nothing worse for grant assessors than noting an activity that isn’t accounted for in the budget (or vice versa) as this indicates that the application is not providing an accurate picture and therefore raises questions around your proposal’s credibility, feasibility and viability.

We guarantee that checking and double checking for consistency and accuracy all the way throughout your application will be well worth your time.

TIP #9: Get a second pair of eyes across your Boosting Female Founders grant application

We strongly recommend recruiting someone who is not only unbiased but is also biz savvy to cast an eagle eye over your application before you even think about hitting that submit button.

Be sure to interpret any questions they ask as significant clues of where your application needs further clarification, improvement, or information.

Tip #10: Just do you

If nothing else, we strongly recommend remembering that this is your own unique mission and journey. On that note, here are some inspiring words of BFF Round 1 winner Laura Youngson:

…You do you. You’ll get lots of advice (some helpful, some not) but you need to run your business your way. It’s not the wrong way even if it’s different to how other things have traditionally been done. What leadership looks like is changing (see Jacinda Ardern), what profitability looks like is changing (more diversity equals more profitability) and what solutions look like is changing (what got us here won’t get us out of the climate emergency). Your lived experience is different to that of a guy. There is a real opportunity for female-led businesses to see different solutions to intractable and overlooked problems and make a positive impact on the world…

Combined, these tips should have you well on your way to a high-quality application. And as a bonus, you’ll be able to feel confident that you’ve done everything possible to secure the funding that will take your innovation and entrepreneurial visions exactly where they need to go next.