News & Updates
Current affairs in small-business philanthropy.
Sector notes, program updates, and plain explanations of the issues shaping small-business development — filed as they happen.
04 Sep 2026
FFSBD Opens Its 2026 Global Grant Cycle
Applications are open worldwide for this year's cycle, with priority review for women-led, rural, and youth-led businesses.
Sector Notes28 Aug 2026
The Financing Gap Small Businesses Still Face
Why viable small businesses keep getting turned down by conventional lenders, and what grant capital can do that a loan can't.
Underserved Founders14 Aug 2026
Backing Women-Led Enterprises: Why Targeted Support Works
General-purpose funding tends to bypass the barriers women founders actually face. Here's what targeted support addresses instead.
Formalization02 Aug 2026
From Informal to Official: First Steps to Formalizing
Registration, bookkeeping, and tax compliance sound like paperwork. For a small business, they're the door to bigger contracts.
Market Access19 Jul 2026
Getting Rural Producers to Bigger Markets
Distance from a market is often a bigger obstacle than the price of what's being sold. What closes that gap.
Have news of your own to share?
If you're an FFSBD grantee with an update, we'd like to hear it.