Small Business Grants in Wisconsin

This one is open to businesses as well as towns. The Brownfields grant pays to clean up contamination on an abandoned, idle or run down industrial or commercial site. Councils, villages, towns, counties, individuals, Tribal bodies and companies can all apply. You need finished Phase I and Phase II environmental reports, and they have to be less than five years old when you apply.

These pay for the writing, not the research. The Center for Technology Commercialization runs them for WEDC, and they help a small business build the business plan and the proposal it needs to chase a federal SBIR or STTR grant. It is a small amount of money aimed at a much larger one, so treat it as the step before Phase I rather than funding in its own right.

WEDC pays back export costs. The International Market Access Grant covers up to $10,000 per application, three per company. Firms that finish ExporTech can claim up to $30,000 per application, six per company. You need a year of trading in Wisconsin, at least 35 percent Wisconsin cost inputs, and gross revenue under $50 million.

A Wisconsin business can apply for this one directly, if it is a co-op or on its way to being one. WEDC pays up to $50,000 for the professional help you need before a big investment. That covers business planning, a feasibility study, legal work or accounting. It will not pay salaries or supplies. You must be an existing Wisconsin co-op, a business converting to one, or a group working toward legal co-op status. Your application needs a written quote from the consultant, on their letterhead, and no relative of yours can do the work. You pay first and claim it back. WEDC has set aside $200,000 a year for two years.

A business cannot apply for this. WEDC gives the money to local economic development groups, councils, Tribal governments and counties, and they invest it in firms with fewer than 25 full time staff. So your route in is the local body, not WEDC. The fund holds $1.5 million for FY26. Projects in rural or hard pressed areas are ranked first, and so are ones helping firms owned by women, minorities, LGBT people or veterans.

This pays a town, not a business. CDI funds work in a downtown area that lifts jobs and property values, and the buildings it improves may well be the ones you trade from. The catch is the match. A community has to put in three dollars for every one it gets, though that eases for places counted as hard pressed and for Opportunity Zones. WEDC publishes no award figure for it today.

This seeds a fund, and the fund is what you pitch. Capital Catalyst pays organisations and communities to set up investment programmes for startups and young companies, and they then back local firms. WEDC puts in $250,000 to $2 million and the recipient matches it dollar for dollar with private money. Most of the funding now comes from the federal State Small Business Credit Initiative rather than the state itself.

WEDC funds nonprofit organisations that provide financing, training or technical assistance to minority, women, LGBT and veteran owned businesses. A business gets help from a partner, not a cheque from WEDC. Over five years WEDC put $6.4 million into strategic partners and $2.2 million into technical assistance. The programme page publishes no award figure, no window and no application.

This is a slice of the CDI grant and it pays a community, not a firm. Vibrant Spaces funds a public gathering place meant to bring people onto the street, which is worth something to any shop or cafe nearby. Applicants match the grant dollar for dollar. That match drops to 25 percent for hard pressed communities and for any town under 5,000 people. WEDC caps the programme at 15 grants in FY27.

This one does not pay your business. WEDC gives the money to nonprofits, councils, colleges, community groups, foundations and Tribal bodies, which then train and advise small firms. Applications are open and close at 5pm on Friday 2 October 2026. Grants pay for running costs, training, events or a full accelerator. Applicants have to match the grant one for one, and in kind help counts. WEDC runs up to two rounds a year, and a round can carry its own theme. If a local group has coached you for free, this is often where its money came from.