Grant Funding for North East Businesses

Updated | This article was first published on Nov 10, 2021

The North East Business Support Fund has now closed.

After three years and supporting over 1340 businesses, applications to the North East Business Support Fund in County Durham, Northumberland and Tyne & Wear have now closed.

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Funding Offer

The grants are to help towards the cost of improving your business. You can use the funding towards the cost of a project that brings in almost any external expertise you need to move your business forward – from marketing and web design specialists to financial or business consultants.

Examples of applicable projects include:

• Growing Sales

  • Marketing Strategy

  • Web Design and development

  • Social Media strategy and design

• Reducing Costs

  • Management Systems

  • Product Development

  • Process Improvement

  • Quality Management

• Future Planning

  • Succession Planning

  • Business Growth Planning

  • Financial Restructuring

  • Change Management

The NEBSF grant is available to businesses located in the following areas:

• County Durham - Up to 40% funding towards projects costing between £2,500 and £8,000

• Northumberland - Up to 35% funding towards projects costing between £3,000 and £8,000

• Tyne & Wear - Up to 35% funding towards projects costing between £3,000 and £8,000

Eligibility

If you run a business based in County Durham, Northumberland, or Tyne & Wear with plans to grow turnover and/or employ more staff, you may be able to access funding from the North East Business Support Fund. Your business must be trading and classed as an SME – meaning it must employ fewer than 250 people and have a turnover of less than €50M.

Businesses that have had previous funding may not be eligible. As this is an extension to the North East Business Support Fund, grants cannot be provided to businesses who have already accessed support from the programme. This includes businesses who have received a full Grant from the North East Business Support Fund since February 2018 or a Covid Response (SME Restart and Recovery / Kick-starting Tourism) Grant.

In the remaining months of the programme, the NEBSF team will proactively target business-to-business organisations - those that make the majority of their income from sales to other businesses.

Learn More

If you’d like to find out more information about the available funding or you’d like to learn how we can help you and your business, email us or call 0191 313 0040.