There is money with your business's name on it. Nobody has time to go find it.
Grants, tax credits, energy rebates, hiring subsidies, industry funds. Most of it goes unclaimed every year — not because businesses don't qualify, but because finding it is a part-time job and you already have a full-time one.
Tell Portland Civic Lab about your business once. We do the hunting and the paperwork. You review what we wrote and click submit.
We rank everything by one question: how much cash does this actually put back in your hands?
A one-time $5,000 grant is good. A rebate that lowers your utility bill every month for a decade is better, and almost nobody chases it because it isn't exciting. A tax credit worth a few thousand dollars a year is invisible money — the IRS simply lets you keep more of what you earned, and most owners never learn it exists.
So we sort by five-year value, weighted by how likely you are to win it and discounted by how much work it takes — not by which program has the biggest headline number.
How it works
Tell us about the business once
What you do, where you are, who owns it, how many people you employ, what you do for the neighborhood. Ten minutes. No EIN, no bank details, no financials.
We go looking for money
City, county, state, federal, and private programs — grants, tax credits, rebates, wage subsidies, and industry funds. We check what you actually qualify for and confirm each one is still open before it reaches you.
We write the applications
Every question answered from your profile, with sources shown. You read it, change anything that doesn't sound like you, and submit it yourself. We never file anything in your name.
We tell you what it came to
Every application tracked through to a yes or a no, with the dollars that landed. Deadlines and renewals watched so nothing lapses quietly.
Funding is where we start
The goal is simpler than it sounds: one place that handles the administrative weight of running a small business in Portland. The same profile powers all of it, so you never fill anything out twice. Estimates below are typical ranges, not promises.
Funding finder
Live now
Grants, tax credits, rebates, and subsidies you qualify for — found, prepped, and tracked.
Card processing audit
Typical savings $3–6k/yr
One month's merchant statement, re-bid against better processors. A café doing $900k pays about $27k a year in fees.
Insurance re-bid
Typical savings $1–5k/yr
General liability, property, and workers' comp put back out to market instead of auto-renewing.
Permits & licensing
Time back, penalties avoided
Renewals tracked, applications prepared, and the review bottlenecks mapped before you file.
Better capital
4–7% instead of 18–28%
CDFI, Kiva, and SBA options compared against what you're paying now — before a credit card becomes the plan.
Government contracts
$50k+/yr in reliable customers
Agencies buy coffee, books, and catering. Set-aside certifications plus the bid pipeline to use them.
Software & banking
Typical savings $1–3k/yr
Nonprofit, startup, and partner pricing on the tools you already pay full price for.
Lease intelligence
The biggest line on the P&L
Rent is expense #1. PCL's own vacancy and lease-comp data, pointed at your next renewal.
What we won't do
Submit in your name
Applications carry your attestation and your signature. We prepare them completely; you read and send. That line stays where it is.
Quote numbers we haven't checked
Every program shows whether we've confirmed its current amounts and deadlines against the funder's own listing. Unverified is labeled unverified.
Ask for what we don't need
No EIN, SSN, or bank details to get started — and when a specific application does require them, we tell you which one and why.