Women Founders Grant
Women Founders Fund
$5,000
Researched for this program: 6 rejection traps · 4 required documentsWhat decides this award ↓
Merit grant for women-founded businesses
Women Founders Fund awards $5,000 merit-based grants to women founders and business owners on a rolling basis. Founded and run by women entrepreneurs, the organization explicitly targets the systemic underfunding of women-led businesses. The application is intentionally lightweight — two short essay questions about your business and how you'd use the grant — with no revenue minimums or stage requirements. Review is rolling in posted rounds with a $25 non-refundable fee; the October 31, 2026 deadline has passed and the organization's apply page has not posted a new one yet. Shortlisted candidates are contacted for follow-up.
- Funding type
- Grant
- Level
- Foundation
- Amount
- $5,000
- Realistic amount
- $5,000 (fixed award)
- Deadline
- Rolling review in posted rounds; the October 31, 2026 deadline has passed and no new deadline is posted yet.
- Status
- between-intakes
- States
- Nationwide
- Payment model
- lump sum
Who qualifies
- Women founder or business owner
- US-based business (implied — organization based in Eastchester, NY)
- Any business stage — from idea to established
- No revenue minimum or maximum
- Any industry except cannabis, vice and hate-based businesses
Hard requirements
- Women ownership required
- Demographic eligibility: women-owned
Is the Women Founders Grant legit?
It is a real program run by a for-profit company, Women Founders Grant, LLC, that pays $5,000 in one lump sum. It costs $25 to apply and the fee is not refundable.
- Who runs it: Women Founders Grant, LLC
- Cost to apply: $25, not refundable
- What winners get: $5,000, paid in a single lump sum
- How winners are picked: Finalists get blind interviews; winners are announced publicly
Sources: womenfoundersgrant.com · page 2 · page 3. Last checked at the funder on October 18, 2026.
Past Women Founders Grant winners
Past winners from its Past Winners page (undated):
- Anu (AI Adventure), AI Adventure, Wisconsin · undated (Past Winners page)
- Nicole Clarece · undated (Past Winners page)
- Christina Arora, Inspired Fitness, Athens, GA · undated (Past Winners page)
- Avantee Taravez, Avantee · undated (Past Winners page)
- Chloe and Nick Sexton, Supposey Warehouse & Gardens, Pensacola, FL · undated (Past Winners page)
- SkinByTrace founder, SkinByTrace · undated (Past Winners page)
Names as published by Women Founders Grant (source). GrantCompass is not affiliated with Women Founders Grant.
New grants like this every week: see this week's list or get it by email on Mondays.
Who runs the Women Founders Grant, and who can enter
The Women Founders Grant is run by Women Founders Grant, LLC, a small company with a mailing address in Eastchester, New York, co-founded by Natasha Yeoh, a former Wall Street and fintech executive. It pays $5,000 to each winner, and an entry costs $25. Its FAQ opens the grant to “Women 18 years or older based in the USA with a business idea or existing business that is at least 51% women-owned and operated.”
Does it run every month, or in rounds?
Monthly, in practice. The fund’s FAQ says it provides “monthly grants” with the last day of each month as the deadline, while its home page says grants are awarded on a rolling basis and the apply page shows one dated deadline at a time. Read that date before you pay, and count each month as a separate $25 entry; the FAQ says you can apply in more than one month.
Who qualifies
- Age and place: “Women 18 years or older based in the USA” (FAQ).
- Ownership: a business idea or existing business “at least 51% women-owned and operated” (FAQ), and “Must have female majority founder - no ‘femme washing’” (the fund’s Our Grants page).
- Stage: “Any stage business can apply from ideation to post revenue,” and “This can be a sneaky side hustle or your full time gig” (Our Grants page).
- Not eligible: “we will not fund cannabis, vice industries or hate based businesses” (Our Grants page).
How to check that it is real
| Check | What the Women Founders Grant shows |
|---|---|
| A named operator | Women Founders Grant, LLC, with a postal address (PO Box 54, Eastchester, NY 10709) in its site footer |
| A real person in charge | Co-founder Natasha Yeoh, with her career set out on its Our Story page; the FAQ gives her phone number for anyone in doubt |
| Winners you can look up | Named winners with their own stories and websites, among them AI Adventure (AI classes for kids in Wisconsin), Nicole Clarece (women’s dresses) and DTOCS (palm-leaf tableware) |
| The fee before you pay | $25, stated as non-refundable on the apply page, paid on the fund’s own site |
Our read: a genuine small grant, not a scam. The $25 fee is how it pays for its reviews, so judge the Women Founders Grant on the fee math further down this page, not on whether it exists. Weighing it against other women’s grants? See grants for women-owned businesses.
What it covers
Eligible expenses
- Any business-related expenses at the owner's discretion
- Working capital and operations
- Equipment, tools, or technology
- Marketing and customer acquisition
- Inventory or raw materials
- Professional development or training
Ineligible expenses
- Personal living expenses
- Debt repayment (not explicitly stated but standard for merit grants)
How to apply
-
1
Pay $25 application fee
Submit a non-refundable $25 application fee via the organization's payment portal before or during the application process.
~15 min
-
2
Answer two essay questions
Question 1: What is your business idea or business (if you have started)? Question 2: How will you use the grant money? Each answer should be authentic and specific — judges are looking for genuine entrepreneurial drive, not polished corporate language.
~1.5 hrs
-
3
Submit application
Complete and submit the application form at womenfoundersgrant.com/apply-now-women-grants. Review is rolling in posted rounds; the October 31, 2026 deadline has passed and no new deadline has been posted yet, so check the apply page for the next date.
~15 min
-
4
Await shortlist contact
Shortlisted candidates are contacted after review of a given cycle closes. No public announcement timeline stated — check your email regularly.
Two-question application is deceptively brief — specificity wins. Name a concrete milestone (hire your first employee, launch in X city, buy a specific piece of equipment) rather than writing vague growth language. The $25 fee filters out low-effort applicants, so well-written answers stand out.
The two Women Founders Grant questions, word for word
The Women Founders Grant application form asks exactly two questions: “What is your business idea or business (if you have started)?” and “How will you use the grant money?” Under each one the form adds the same request: “Please refrain from using AI, we want to hear from your heart.”
Other pages on the fund’s site word them differently, which is why guides quote different versions. The form is what you answer.
| Where | Question 1 | Question 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Application form (what you submit) | What is your business idea or business (if you have started)? | How will you use the grant money? |
| Home page | How are you translating your passion into a business? | How will this grant make your dream a reality? |
| FAQ | What inspired you to start your business, and what is your vision for its future? | How do you plan to utilize the Women Founders Grant to further your entrepreneurial endeavors? |
Question 1: your business or idea
- Open with one plain sentence a friend could repeat: what you sell, and who buys it.
- Say where it stands, with one number: sketches only, 40 pre-orders, first $3,000 in sales, two years trading.
- Then the one moment that made you start. One story, not your whole career.
- Write it yourself, in your own words. The form asks for that outright.
Question 2: the $5,000
- Spend all $5,000 on paper: two to four line items, each with a price, that add up to $5,000.
- Tie each item to a result someone could check later: an order filled, a market opened, a person hired.
Worked example, a home baker: $2,800 for a double convection oven, $1,200 for licensing and printed labels, $1,000 for a season of farmers-market stall fees. Result: twice the weekly output and a second market.
Published winners write about the money the same way. On the fund’s Past Winners page, AI Adventure says its grant goes to new locations and a program to bring more girls into AI, and Nicole Clarece names marketing and brand awareness.
Deadline & timing
Review is rolling. Shortlisted candidates are contacted after review of a given cycle closes. The October 31, 2026 deadline has passed and no new deadline has been posted yet; the apply page shows the next date once one is set.
Not accepting applications right now — get one email when it reopens
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Free. One email when the window moves, deadline warnings on your watchlist, and the monthly closing-soon digest. Unsubscribe anytime.
Programs that stack well
Is the $25 Women Founders Grant fee worth it?
One $25 entry is 0.5% of the $5,000 award, so it covers its cost only if more than 1 entry in 200 wins in a round. The larger cost is repeat entry: every Women Founders Grant application carries its own $25 fee, so entering every month for a year costs $300. Hey Helen’s single $15 entry, by contrast, covers 12 monthly rounds of $10,000.
| Grant | Award per round | Fee | Entries in a year | Most a year costs | One fee as share of one award |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Women Founders Grant (this page) | $5,000 | $25 | 12 | $300 | 0.5% |
| HerRise MicroGrant | $1,000 | $15 | 12 | $180 | 1.5% |
| Amber Grant | $15,000, three a month | $15 | 4 at most | $60 | 0.1% |
| Hey Helen Grant | $10,000 | $15 | 1 | $15 | 0.15% |
Amber accepts one application per email every 3 months, so 4 a year at most; each entry counts for that month’s two main grants and stays in its rotating category grant for up to 11 more months. HerRise counts an entry for the month it arrives in. Hey Helen accepts US women-owned businesses under $1 million in yearly revenue.
Enter Hey Helen first if you qualify: $15 once keeps you in a year of rounds. Then give the Women Founders Grant up to three months ($75), since it accepts founders who only have an idea. Its FAQ invites anyone still unsuccessful after a third month to email the founder for guidance: do that before paying for a fourth. The Coach K Legacy Grant pays $1,000 a month with no entry fee, so it costs nothing to add.
The one grant with the same prize and the same price is Her Agenda’s Breakthrough Grant: $5,000 for a $25 fee. It needs a currently operating US business and a subscription to the free Her Agenda newsletter, so an idea-stage founder can enter only the Women Founders Grant of the two. For fee per $1,000 of award across seven founder grants, see women founder grants compared by entry fee.
Apply-Ready
Looking for more grants to enter?
We don't draft Women Founders Grant applications: its funder asks applicants not to use AI, so write that one yourself. We do draft these seventeen. Answer a few short questions once and we draft your application from what you tell us: only your facts, with a blank wherever the judges want a detail only you know. You submit it yourself.
You see a free preview first and pay only if you want the full draft: $9 per grant. You can add the other month-end grants you qualify for at $5 each (never more than $15 extra).
Close at the end of every month
- Hey Helen Grant$10,000 monthlyWomen-owned · US · under $1M revenueCloses the last day of every month, 11:59pm ETDraft my applicationit →
- Amber Grant$15,000 monthlyWomen-owned (50%+)Closes the last day of every monthDraft my applicationit →
- HerRise MicroGrant$1,000 monthly51%+ women-owned · US · under $1M revenueCloses the last day of every monthDraft my applicationit →
- Big Idea Grant (YippityDoo)$1,000 monthlyWomen-owned and run · ideas welcomeCloses the last day of every month, 11:59pm PTDraft my applicationit →
- Freed Fellowship$500 monthlyAny US for-profit businessCloses the last day of every monthDraft my applicationit →
Twelve more, with other deadlines (three welcome idea-stage founders)
- Sephora Beauty Grant$100,000Beauty brands · $100K+ revenue · 51%+ underrepresented-owned · no entry feeFinal deadline November 6, 2026Draft my applicationit →
- SecretSoS Small Business Grant$2,500 quarterlyWomen-, veteran- or minority-owned, or turned down for a bank loan · USCloses the last day of each quarterDraft my applicationit →
- Business Freedom Grant$1,000Idea stage welcome · no entry feeReview rounds until the final deadline, December 31, 2026Draft my applicationit →
- IFW Startup Accelerator Grant$5,000Any US owner (50%+) · idea stage welcome · $5 entry feeFinal deadline November 30, 2026Draft my applicationit →
- The Hustle Grant$1,000 monthlyWomen-owned · USMonthly; winner named on the 15thDraft my applicationit →
- Hustler's MicroGrant$1,000 monthlyAny US small-business owner · $15 entry feeMonthly; no published closing dateDraft my applicationit →
- Seated Together Microgrant$750 ($1,000 veteran-owned)Any US for-profit · startups welcome · $5 entry feeRolling; reviewed each quarterDraft my applicationit →
- Hiring Our Heroes Small Business Grant$10,000–$25,000Veteran or military-spouse owned · 3–20 people · no entry feeFinal deadline December 15, 2026Draft my applicationit →
- Awesome Foundation Micro-Grant$1,000 monthlyAnyone with a community project · no entry feeRolling; most chapters choose monthlyDraft my applicationit →
- Outta Excuses Grant$3,000 quarterlyRegistered LLC · under $500K revenue · $15 entry feeFinal deadline December 31, 2026Draft my applicationit →
- Tory Burch Foundation Fellows$2,000 + a year's fellowshipWomen-owned · $75K+ revenue · no entry feeFinal deadline November 17, 2026Draft my applicationit →
- Thiel Fellowship$250,000 over 2 yearsAge 22 or under · no university degree · no entry feeRolling; open all yearDraft my applicationit →
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Last updated November 1, 2026. GrantCompass is an independent funding-discovery tool and is not affiliated with any government agency. Always confirm details on the official program page.