COVID-19 Update – 9 March – Digital and Rural Grants

Lincolnshire County council have developed new funding schemes to support businesses to move towards increased digitisation and help rural business purchase capital equipment to respond to the challenges of COVID-19.

Digital Grant Fund 

The digital grant fund is available for businesses that are looking for funding to get 1-2-1 specialist digital advice or invest in new technology such as e-commerce platforms, contactless payment systems, website development, software development, IT hardware and software, for example, to support remote working, digitisation of processes.

The key points of this scheme are as follows:

• Grants are to be issued from a minimum of £1,000 to a maximum of £5,000
• The grants can be used for up to 100% of the project’s costs, including irrecoverable VAT if the business is not VAT registered
• The grants can be used as a contribution towards larger projects where the application has the funds to pay any costs over £5,000.
• The scheme is open to businesses with less than 50 employees

The expression of interest window for this scheme is now open and will be until 11:59 pm on 12 March.

Find out more

Rural Business Grant

The rural business grant fund is designed to provide financial support for existing rural businesses to help them purchase capital equipment so that they can respond to the challenging trading environment caused by Covid-19.

The key points of this scheme are as follows:

• Businesses can apply for between £3,000 and £25,000 of funding
• The grant can only be used for a maximum of 75% of the total project costs
• You can add up to five expenditure items per grant application but the total grant cannot exceed £25,000.
• Projects must be completed within 90 days of receiving the funding

The expression of interest window is now open and will close at 6 pm on 17 March. However, if grant requests exceed the amount of funding available the window will close early.

Find out more