Applying for and receiving funding does not require any education or secret knowledge. The golden rule is “information before investment”.

The experts from the Vienna Business Agency have put together five tips to help you on your way to a successful funded business project:

1. Clearly define your project.

Remember, funding is NOT for “ongoing operations” – it is ONLY to overcome a particular challenge in your business activities, i.e. for a specific project. Define the start and end of your project, the outcome you want to achieve, and its long-term relevance for your company. Describe your project in such a way that it can be easily understood by an outsider.

2. Submit a funding application before investing in the project.

To put it simply: do NOT start your project before you have submitted a funding application! Costs incurred before an application has been submitted cannot be funded. In fact, incurring costs before submitting an application could result in the project being completely ineligible for support.

3. Talking to us will help.

Meet with us in person to obtain detailed information and answers to your questions. You may even learn of other programmes or funding opportunities, and you will often get an idea of your likelihood of success. It will be time well spent!

4. Stay on track.

If you have paid attention to tip 1 and put plenty of thought into your project, you have done well so far and now you need to continue on this path. Do NOT change your project to make it fit a funding programme. If you don’t think that your project fits into an existing funding programme or you need to make changes to it, then follow tip 3 instead and talk to us.

5. Documentation is key.

Create the necessary documentation from day one. It will make the accounting easier, which will always be required in the end. All funding agencies, including the Vienna Business Agency, work with taxpayers’ money. It has to be transparent what the money is being used for and why!