Before you write a funding application, find out whether your business can apply at all

What we will and will not quote

We state a program's rules, amounts or deadlines only once they have been read on the funder's own page, and every rule in an assessment is dated with when it was last checked.

That rules out some of what a trades business asks about first. We have not checked WorkBC's wage subsidy or the BC Employer Training Grant at source, so we do not quote what they pay or when they close. If one of them matters to your decision, reading it at source is part of the work.

The gates that decide it before merit

Whether you qualify is a separate question from whether the writing is good, and it is the one to settle first. Four gates, each read on the funder's own page:

• Checked September 2026

  Applicant type

  Sole proprietors and individual entrepreneurs cannot apply to three of the largest programs we track: Alberta's Aboriginal Business Investment Fund, BC's First Nations Equity Financing Program and the Canada Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program. That is a rule about those three, not a general rule about incorporation.

  Each of the three is also for Indigenous applicants: Indigenous communities and the entities they own and control, Indigenous Governing Bodies and their corporations, or section 35 rights holders.

  Alberta - ABIF, BC - First Nations Equity Financing Program, CILGC - the program

• Checked September 2026

  Grant or debt

  Three routes often called funding are debt or debt-backed, not grants: the BDC Indigenous Entrepreneur Loan, the Canada Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program and BC's First Nations Equity Financing Program. Read the funding type before the number.

  BDC - Indigenous Entrepreneur Loan

• Checked September 2026

  Cost share and matching money

  Cost shares vary by program: up to 100 per cent of eligible costs for Alberta's Aboriginal Business Investment Fund and ISC's Access to Business Opportunities; 80, 66.67 or 30 to 40 per cent across the streams of ISC's Community Opportunity Readiness Program.

  Matching money can be a condition: that program requires the applicant to put in at least 10 per cent cash and show other funding sources.

  ISC - Community Opportunity Readiness Program

• Checked September 2026

  A close date is a ceiling

  Several programs run until the money is committed rather than to a fixed date, including the Canada Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program (until the $10 billion is committed) and BC's First Nations Equity Financing Program (until the $1 billion cap is allocated). A published close date is a ceiling, not a plan.

  CILGC - the program, BC - First Nations Equity Financing Program

Talk to us before you hire, buy or sign

Talk to us before you hire, buy equipment, sign a lease or start work that might later be funded, because an intake can close before the date on the page: several programs run until the money is committed.

We claim no general rule about costs incurred before you apply or before approval. It is checked program by program, on the program's own page, and reported to you with the funder's wording in front of you.

Checked September 2026

Skills Link: a private business as the applicant

Indigenous Services Canada's First Nations and Inuit Youth Employment Strategy, Skills Link stream, names private sector employers among its eligible applicants, at up to 50 per cent of wage costs. Among the ISC programs we have catalogued, it is the one where a private business is the applicant rather than the beneficiary.

Two things are not stated here: when to apply relative to making the hire, and what the program requires of the person hired. Both are checked at source as part of the work, the same as any figure we have not yet read on the funder's page.

ISC - Skills Link, checked September 2026

Your books, underneath it

We also keep books in Xero for owner-operated trades, safety, engineering and creative businesses. Setup is a one-time fee, and monthly work is a flat fee set by your actual volume, both quoted in writing.

Specialist bookkeeping in Xero

How we work and what it costs

We prepare the application; you submit it, in your own name. We never press submit, never contact a funder or any government body on your behalf, and never appear as your contact on a form.

After a free 20-minute call, if there is something worth checking, the next step is the Discovery Package: $500 + GST, flat. Writing and editing are quoted in writing afterwards. Reeve Business Solutions charges no success fee and takes no percentage of any award.

We publish no success rate and no funding total.

How we charge