How Do I Write the 'Tell Us About Your Business' Section of a Grant Application?

What that box is actually asking for

You'll see some version of it on application after application. "Tell us about your business." "Describe your organization and its need." "Business narrative." A blank rectangle and a word limit, and a first-time applicant staring at it for three days.

Here's the thing nobody tells you: that box is not an essay contest. It's a form in disguise. It's asking for a specific set of facts, and whoever reads it has to find them — so treat it as four questions to answer rather than an essay to write. If your paragraphs give those four things quickly, everything the form asked for is easy to find. If it has to be hunted for, you've made the form's job your reader's job.

The four questions the prompt is really asking

Programs differ, but read enough published prompts — corporate small-business grants, state economic-development programs, federal opportunities — and the same four questions keep showing up in the wording itself.

Notice what's not on that list: your origin story's emotional arc, adjectives about your commitment, or the word "passionate." None of those answer any of the four questions. They're not banned either — a sentence of humanity helps — but they can't stand in for an answer.

A structure you can fill in tonight

Use this order. It answers the questions in roughly the order the prompts ask them.

1. One sentence of identification. What you do, where, since when, how big. "Dee's Bakehouse is a four-year-old retail bakery in Toledo, Ohio, with three part-time employees."
2. Two to three sentences on traction. Evidence that the business works: customers served, wholesale accounts, revenue direction, a license you hold, a contract you fill. Use your own real figures.
3. Two to three sentences on the problem. The specific constraint standing between you and the next step. Not "we need capital." Rather: "Our single deck oven caps us at roughly 200 loaves a day, and we've turned down two wholesale accounts this year because of it."
4. The use of funds, as a short list. Equipment, installation, deposit, wages, software — with dollar amounts you got from an actual quote. Make the list total the amount you're requesting.
5. Two sentences on what changes. The measurable after-state and when. "Within six months of installation we expect to fill both wholesale accounts and add one part-time baker."
6. One optional closing sentence on why it matters to your customers, your block, your industry — the funder's stated priority, in your own words.

That's it. That's the whole narrative. Six moves, and most of them are one or two sentences.

Specific beats impressive

Picture Marcus, who runs a two-truck landscaping company in Ohio. His first draft said: "We are a growing, community-focused landscaping business committed to excellence and sustainability." That sentence could describe ten thousand companies. A reviewer learns nothing.

His second draft said: "We're a two-truck landscaping crew serving 62 residential accounts across three suburbs, in our fifth season, with one full-time employee and two seasonal hires." Same business. Completely different application. The second version gives a reviewer something to hold.

The test for any sentence in your narrative: could a competitor copy it word for word and have it still be true? If yes, rewrite it with a number, a place or a name in it.

The use-of-funds paragraph is the one to get specific in

A business can be excellent and still leave this question half-answered. "Funds will be used for growth and operations" is a sentence that would be true of nearly any business asking for money — it doesn't say what this money does. Four line items with quoted prices that sum to the amount requested say it exactly.

A few rules worth following:

• Get a real quote before you write the number. Many vendors will email one for free.
• Only list costs the funder allows. Read the eligible-expenses language twice; some programs exclude rent, debt payoff, or owner salary.
• Don't request more than the program's published maximum, and don't request a suspiciously round number if your quotes aren't round.
• If you'd cover part of the cost yourself, say so — it's part of the funding picture for the project.

If you're not sure what typical award sizes look like before you build your line items, our breakdown of how much a small business grant actually is uses published maximums from funders' own pages.

Match their language, honestly

Read the program's stated purpose and use its vocabulary. If a funder says it supports "main street revitalization," and you're a storefront on a main street, use that phrase. Not because it's a trick — because the program has published what it funds, and using its own words makes the fit easy to see.

What you should never do is bend the truth to fit. If a program funds job creation and you aren't hiring, that's a signal to apply elsewhere, not to invent a hire. Many applications ask you to certify what you've written, and a claim you'd later have to walk back isn't worth making.

Write it once, reuse it forever

Draft one master version of these six moves, then keep two derivatives: a short squeeze for tight forms and a longer expansion for roomy ones. The limits printed on the forms you're actually filling decide the lengths. Every new application becomes editing instead of starting over — which is what makes it realistic to file several applications in a season instead of one.

Applying for a legitimate grant is free. Your narrative is the one real cost, measured in hours, so the reuse compounds.

Before you hit submit

• Read it out loud. Anything you stumble over is worth rewriting.
• Cut every adjective that isn't doing work.
• Confirm the numbers in the narrative match the numbers in the budget form. A mismatch is the kind of thing you don't want to be explaining later.
• Check you actually answered the prompt they wrote, not the prompt you expected.
• Have one person who doesn't know your business read it and tell you what you do.

And if the blank page is the obstacle itself, that's exactly what GrantWriter is for — it drafts this section with you, using your answers about your business, so you're editing sentences instead of inventing them.

Sources

• Grants.gov
• U.S. Small Business Administration
• SCORE