Female Business Grants Ontario: Do You Know These 45 Programs for Women Entrepreneurs?

Looking for grants for your female-owned business in Ontario?

You’re in the right place!

Because on this page we explain everything about women entrepreneur financing in Canada, including female entrepreneur grants, small business loans for women, and much more!

What is a Women Entrepreneur Grant?

The Government of Canada defines a grant as:

a transfer payment subject to pre-established eligibility and other entitlement criteria. A grant is not subject to being accounted for by a recipient nor normally subject to audit by the department. The recipient may be required to report on results achieved.

So, a grant for a female-owned business is:

  • A non-repayable transfer payment that is available to women-owned businesses;
  • Subject to specific eligibility criteria; and
  • May or may not need to be reported on.

What Can Female Entrepreneurs Business Grants Be Used For?

Female entrepreneur business grants can be used to pay for many aspects of starting or running a business. Here are some of the uses that are covered by programs in our grants database:

  • Starting a women-owned business
  • Expanding your women-owned business
  • Working capital for your women-owned business

And that’s just a sample! See the section below with a complete list of grants available for female entrepreneurs.

How Much Grant Money Can I Get for My Female Entrepreneurs Business?

In our database we currently have grants ranging from $2,000 to $25,000.

Am I Eligible for a Female Entrepreneurs Business Grant? Common Eligibility Criteria

Two of the most common questions we get asked at Ontario Business Grants are “Am I eligible?” and “How do I qualify?”.

We analyzed the female entrepreneur business grants in our grants database, and these are the most common qualifications we identified:

  • Be women entrepreneurs
  • Be women companies generating revenue or having a customer base
  • Be for-profit women-owned companies incorporated in Canada

Note: these are just the most common eligibility criteria – there are many grants with different requirements.

How to Apply for Female Entrepreneur Grants: Follow These 6 Steps

  1. Gather all available grants. We cover women’s business funding programs in this guide – but did you know there are additional programs available for different demographic groups (such as young entrepreneurs, Black entrepreneurs, and others), as well as programs for different funding purposes (such as hiring, training, R&D, exporting, energy efficiency improvements, and much more)?
  1. Find grants that are a close fit with your business goals. Review the application requirements to find out whether your business is eligible. When your business goals fit a particular type of grant, you have better chances of getting matched to it. You want to devote your time and energy to grants where you have the highest potential of winning
  1. Contact the grant agencies. If you want to gain more understanding on what qualities the agencies are looking for in their grant applicants, there is no better way than to go right to the source. If possible, contact the agency questions and look for areas where you can stand out from the rest.
  1. Get your plan in place. This plan should include a one-page draft of your grant application statement.
  1. Gather your documents. Grant organisations often ask their applicants to provide a business plan and other pertinent documents. If you organise your documents in advance, you’ll be ready to submit them when the grant agency requests them.
  1. Submit an excellent application. Make sure you follow all requirements of the grant program (which you can find in the grant program guide) to increase your chances of success.

Bonus Tip:

  1. Consider other types of funding. Besides grants, there are dozens of different types of funding that women entrepreneurs can go after, from crowdfunding to business competitions, loans to incubators.

Female Entrepreneurs Grants for Ontario: Current Grants Available

In the table below we list the grants currently available to female entrepreneurs in Canada.

To learn more about each program, just click the program name and you’ll be taken to a web page that provides detailed information on the program, including eligibility, the dollar amount of the program, and how to apply for the grant:

Women Founders, Business Owners and Entrepreneurs

Amount:

No funding involved

Type of Program:

In-Kind Support

Description:

Invest Ottawa’s vision is for Canada’s Capital to be the best city in the world for all women founders and business owners to launch, grow and scale commercially successful, globally oriented and sustainable companies.

We are on a journey that we know will take time, long-standing leadership, and extensive community collaboration. But we’re determined to move the dial and to create long-lasting change.

More Info

Talent to Watch Program

Amount:

no fixed amount

Type of Program:

Grant

Description:

The Talent to Watch Program supports emerging filmmakers looking to finance the production stage of their first feature film project(s).

More Info

SheBoot

Amount:

$300,000

Type of Program:

Investment

Description:

SheBoot is tackling the funding gap facing women entrepreneurs by increasing the number of women making and receiving investment. We’re charting a new path for women founders—to grow, scale and compete globally.

More Info

IDM Fund: Futures Forward

Amount:

$20,000

Type of Program:

Grant

Description:

The Ontario Creates-CMF IDM Futures Forward Program is a partnership with Ontario Creates and the Canada Media Fund (CMF) that provides funding for early-stage project-related development.

This program seeks to support companies that often have barriers to accessing project funding and to support the very beginning of a project’s creative process with the objective of giving a project a better chance to succeed in future stages of funding.

More Info

Fierce Founders Uplift

Amount:

$10,000

Type of Program:

Grant

Description:

Supports women and non-binary founders from equity-deserving groups with $10,000 in non-matching funds and growth coaching.

More Info

Fierce Founders Intensive Track

Amount:

$50,000

Type of Program:

Grant

Description:

For founders with a product in-market and generating revenue: build a growth plan and execute it with hands-on support and potential access to $50,000.

More Info

FCC Women Entrepreneur Program

Amount:

no fixed amount

Type of Program:

Loan

Description:

FCC provides financing to women entrepreneurs in agriculture, agribusiness and agri-food to start or grow their business.Through our research and discussions with women in agriculture, we discovered three key needs: increased access to capital to start or grow their business, access to business and competency skill development for themselves and their business, and access to tools, resources, and people to learn from and be inspired.

More Info

EDC Inclusive Trade Investments Program (ITIP)

Amount:

no fixed amount

Type of Program:

Investment

Description:

Export Development Canada (EDC) has committed $200 million to invest in companies founded or led by diverse Canadians
For Canadian exporting businesses owned and led by people identifying as women, Indigenous, Black and other dimensions of diversity, one of the main barriers to growth is lack of equitable access to capital. This program helps address that challenge and create more opportunities for growth.

More Info

Digital Greenhouse

Amount:

$50,000.00

Type of Program:

Grant

Description:

Digital Greenhouse is a digital innovation initiative for Canadian individuals, groups and organizations. It supports short-term projects that leverage digital technology to address sectoral and digital challenges, including:
1. the development of new digital tools and solutions that increase the resilience, sustainability, and discoverability of the arts sector,
2. the development of sector-wide and cross-sector collaborations, partnerships, and networks to support innovative digital business models, revenue models and monetization strategies,
3. sectoral approaches aimed at strategically increasing the digital/data literacy and ongoing digital transformation of the arts sector,
4. addressing challenges and exploring digital solutions related to accessibility, equity, diversity, decolonization, social justice, and climate responsibility created by, or relevant to, the digital world,
5. addressing challenges and exploring solutions related to the lack of access to digital infrastructure for remote regions and Northern and under-represented communities.

More Info

BDC Inclusive entrepreneurship loan

Amount:

$350,000

Type of Program:

Loan

Description:

Helping ambitious business owners from underserved communities get the financing, education and support they need to succeed.

More Info

The Bottom Line

Here’s the bottom line: now’s the time for women entrepreneurs to move their businesses forward with confidence. There are more funding opportunities than ever before and more women-led businesses than ever before.

You, as a businessperson and a woman, can tremendously impact the Canadian economy and improve it more than any other demographic. It doesn’t matter who or what you are—Indigenous, LGBTQ+, old, young, or disabled—as long as you’re a woman with a great idea and the wherewithal to follow through with that great idea or you have a company you hold the reins of, you can guide your company to success with the help of these funding programs.