Show Me The Money! Grants & Funding - Practical Tips & Support

Revised: October 2025

Hello wonderful innovators,

Trying a new format for the newsletter this month; stripped down content to make speed-reading even quicker. Please let me know your thoughts.

As part of the NatWest Accelerator I’ll be delivering an online Show Me The Money session on funding on 16 October. To date we’ve helped innovators like you access over £8m in grant funding. I know I’ve still got it as we just won a grant for £25k on Friday. Grant funding is still there, we just have to work harder to win it.

Grant windows are getting shorter — some are closing early if oversubscribed. More applicants, more competition, fewer funds. Quite a few opportunities this month close within days of this newsletter going out. My best advice: use AI to search this document and apply quickly so you don’t miss out.

Resilience is needed when launching your own business, but also when dealing with council bureaucracy! Hats off to Karolina Medwecka-Piasecka, Programme Development Manager at Birmingham City Council, and Lynne Avery, Delivery Manager at Business Growth West Midlands, for making grant programme creation and grant monitoring less painful for all their providers, especially us.

Karolina Medwecka-Piasecka                                                Lynne Avery

If you’re thinking of launching a charity, take a look at the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Programme. It’s one of the best initiatives out there — with stipends of up to £2,000/month plus ~£100,000 in grants to help you get started.

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Parents juggling childcare and work: iSE in Birmingham is now offering free hotdesking with childcare (details in Social Impact section). A fantastic way to carve out a few hours for business planning or that important call.

October highlights: Black History Month, BFI London Film Festival, World Dyslexia Awareness Day, New Scientist Live, Birmingham Tech Week, and it’s awards season! Good luck if you’re nominated.

Watched an interesting 2 minute video on Divergent Thinking. Check it out here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QWm5uIbXtM

Featured University Programme: Arden Futures Live Industry Project — a 4-week virtual consultancy where student teams apply their learning to real business challenges (Growth Strategy, Digital Marketing, Sustainable Impact).

Featured Programme: Virgin StartUp Momentum — an 8-week accelerator designed for founders with dyslexia. While 1 in 3 US founders identify as neurodiverse, it’s around 1 in 4 in the UK. Dyslexia is a superpower when it comes to innovative business.

If you or anyone you know has signed up to this newsletter & are not receiving it, check the junk folder, it may have snuck in there. 

Receive this free Show Me The Money newsletter every month to your inbox:

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Stay amazing, stay courageous

Drew

Drew Currie

Founder, hibretOne CIC | Interim CEO, iSE CIC

Top Tips for New Subscribers:

●       If a grant or programme is not in your region, many funds listed are for the W Midlands. Search the keywords within the grant, as the programme may be running in your area, under a different name.

●       Use AI to search this document, as some of the grants have a short applications window.

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Big Thank You to these supporters….

E&OE

Disclaimer:

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•     Items added in the order I found out about them, not importance.