This Woman Knows Grant 2025 – $500 Microgrant for U.S. Women Entrepreneurs & Creatives

Grant Overview

$500 cash + visibility – no trauma essay required. Ongoing Applications.

Donor: This Woman Knows Media

About: The first time I read the line “We see you. We believe in your vision. You are worthy of this,” something in my chest unclenched. Most grants ask you to bleed on the page—prove your pain, quantify your struggle, compete for who has it worst. Lisa N. Alexander and the crew behind This Woman Knows decided that was broken. Instead, they built a microgrant that treats women like whole people, not sob-story contestants. One crisp paragraph about what you’re building, a $15 entry fee that keeps the lights on, and a single $500 check wired straight to the project you care about most. That’s it. No trauma Olympics. No social-media sprint. Just a quiet, radical vote of confidence.

Why the donor built it this way

Lisa started her own microgrant program after years of coaching women who had brilliant ideas and $37.42 in their business accounts. She noticed two patterns: first, traditional funders kept asking women to justify their existence with hardship narratives; second, tiny injections of cash—$300 for a logo, $150 for childcare during a launch weekend—often created outsized momentum. The This Woman Knows Grant is her answer to both problems. Each cycle pools the $15 application fees, adds a slice of TWK sponsorship money, and hands one woman the exact boost she said she needed. Past winners have spent the money on everything from a heat press for a T-shirt side hustle to three months of bookkeeping software for a fledgling nonprofit.

Who actually wins

Scan the creative entrepreneurship grants we track and you’ll see a pattern: the short applications that skip trauma stories attract scrappy, clear-eyed builders. TWK recipients fit that mold. May’s winner used the $500 to rent a booth at her city’s first Black-women makers market; June’s winner bought a refurbished DSLR and shot the promo photos that doubled her Etsy sales. None of them had perfect business plans or six-figure projections. They had a next step that $500 would unlock and the guts to describe it in 300 words or less.

How the “Exchange” works

Yes, there’s a give-back – TWK calls it “the Exchange.” But it’s closer to a victory lap than homework. Recipients choose their own medium: a 90-second Instagram reel, a short blog post, even a voice note. The point is amplification, not paperwork. Your win becomes evidence for the next woman wondering if her idea is worth $15 and a dream. In practice, the Exchange pieces read like love letters to possibility: a textile artist filming the exact moment her new serger stitches its first seam, a baker showing the industrial mixer the grant check financed. They’re marketing gold for TWK, sure, but they’re also momentum fuel for whoever sees them.

Strategic timing tips

Applications accepted from the 20th of one month through the 20th of the next. That rolling window means you can apply the same day you discover the grant. If you miss the July 20 cutoff, you roll into August consideration automatically – no extra fee, no new form. Winners are announced on the first of the following month via email and TWK’s Instagram. Pro tip: submit early in the cycle. Lisa reads every entry personally, and early applicants occasionally get featured on her podcast for women founders before the official announcement.

Grantaura’s take: is it worth the $15?

Short answer: yes. Long answer: $15 is less than the average freelancer spends on coffee in a week, and the ROI is absurd. Even if you don’t win, you’ve practiced articulating your vision under word-count pressure – a skill every founder needs for pitch decks, grant essays, and investor emails. If you do win, the ripple effect is wild. One client of ours parlayed her TWK win into a local news segment that brought in $3,200 in pre-orders. Another used her winner badge to negotiate a 15 % discount on a co-working membership. The trick is treating the application like a mini-strategy session: name the one bottleneck $500 would fix, explain why fixing it matters, and hit submit before your inner critic wakes up. Need help sharpening that paragraph? Our grant-writing team can turn your messy brainstorm into a sentence that lands.

Focus: Microgrant, women entrepreneurs, creative projects, business startup, nonprofit support, U.S.-based women, no hardship narrative, quick application

Region: United States

Eligibility:
– Identify as a woman (cis, trans, nonbinary inclusive)
– 18 years or older
– U.S. resident
– Building or growing a business, nonprofit, or creative practice
– Able to pay the $15 application fee

Benefits:
– $500 cash award sent by PayPal or check
– Spotlight feature on This Woman Knows platforms
– Invitation to contribute a short “Exchange” piece amplifying your work
– Access to TWK community of fellow founders and creatives

Deadline: Rolling – closes on the 20th of each month for the following cycle

Terms:
– Microgrant: A small-sum financial award designed for immediate, practical impact rather than large-scale project funding
– Exchange: Recipient’s optional contribution (blog post, video, social share) celebrating the win and encouraging other applicants
– Flex close: Priority review for applications received by the 20th; later submissions roll to next cycle
– Grant cycle: Monthly window from the 20th of one month to the 20th of the next
Author: Imran Ahmad, founder of Grantaura, has spent the last four years turning “I don’t know where to start” into funded realities for over 300 women-led ventures. A Communication grad who grew up watching his mom bootstrap three side hustles on $20 at a time, he built Grantaura to make micro-opportunities like TWK impossible to miss. When he’s not hunting down fresh grants, he’s probably testing a new no-code tool or trading sourdough tips with clients on Slack. Book a slot at grantaura.com/consultation if you want his team to polish your TWK pitch until it sings.