Do you want the chance to win a free grant for your Iowa business? Enter the Dream Big Grow Here contest for your shot to win a regional $5,000 small business grant, and the chance to win a $10,000 grand prize! This blog post will give you some tips and tricks to provide you the edge in winning this free money for your company. As one of the contest administrators, I can tell you that we receive lots of questions regarding the rules and regulations for the Dream Big Grow Here grant contest. This is welcome and expected- you don't want your entry to be denied right out of the gate, because you don't qualify or didn't fully understand the rules pertaining to the contest. You can figure out what the rules are by clicking on the 'How it Works' button on each of the regional contests' homepages. If after reading through the 'How it Works' page you still have questions, feel free to reach out to us directly via e-mail at [email protected]. Before I launch into some actionable ... [More]

As I type this, we have about twelve hours to go before we open up the polls for voting for the Dream Big Grow Here Cedar Valley grant contest.  Remember, anyone can vote, but you can only vote once per day per entry between the 15th and the last day of the month.  My advice: Vote Early and Vote Often.  We've seen some pretty cool ideas come through the site over the past couple of weeks.  Make sure to check them out and spread a little Cedar Valley Business Love on them by voting for your favorites.  Voting ends on April 30th at midnight.  Good luck to everyone! Thanks to our sponsors: Iowa Banker's Association Renew Rural Iowa Community Vitality Center/Iowa MicroLoan Fund Iowa Department of Economic Development Technology Association of Iowa Iowa Area Development Group