When did you last check if a grant you already qualify for was sitting open, right now, with a deadline that hasn’t happened yet? Most funding roundups mention this grant in one sentence and move on, which is a shame, because the Verizon Small Business Digital Ready grant is one of the few funding opportunities that is genuinely funding small businesses across the United States. It has an easy selection process that rewards people who actually read the rules. Here’s exactly how it works.
What This Grant Offers
Verizon, in partnership with the nonprofit Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), gives out $10,000 grants to small business owners across the US, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. This isn’t a one-time contest – LISC selects 10 small businesses every single month between June and December 2026, and finalists are notified by January 12, 2027. Since the partnership started in 2021, LISC and Verizon have handed out more than $15 million in grants to small business owners nationwide.
The money doesn’t need to be repaid, and unlike a lot of well-known startup funding, you don’t need a pitch deck, a cofounder, or a specific industry to qualify. You just need to be a for-profit business (nonprofits aren’t eligible) with an owner who’s 18 or older.
How to Unlock Your Application
To Apply you first have to complete any combination of two free courses, virtual events, or eligible in-person events on the Verizon Small Business Digital Ready platform sometime between January 1 and December 7, 2026. That could be one course plus one live coaching call, or two on-demand courses back-to-back. Note that this does not it doesn’t have to be complicated, and most people finish the requirement in under two hours.
Once you have done that, your application unlocks and you submit it once. From there, you stay in consideration for the $10,000 grant every month for the rest of the year. You don’t need to reapply each round. This “apply once, stay eligible all year” structure is exactly why so few people know about this grant compared to flashier one-time competitions. More over there is no single dramatic deadline pulling in a huge applicant pool, so the actual odds per month are better than they look.
Who Actually Gets Picked
According to LISC’s published criteria, priority goes to businesses located in or serving historically under-served communities that lack access to flexible, affordable capital. On top of that, LISC has been direct about one detail most applicants overlook: priority is also given to first-time applicants. If you have already won a Digital Ready grant before, you can still apply again, but you are less likely to be selected a second time, which frees up more real opportunity for someone applying fresh.
Selection isn’t purely random once the pool narrows. A subset of applications goes through a closer review process that looks specifically at accuracy of the submission, the community impact of the business, and how clearly the applicant describes what the $10,000 would actually fund. That last part matters more than people think. Vague answers about “growing the business” get filtered out in favour of specific, concrete plans.
If you are still shaping what your business does before applying, our earlier post on 50 profitable business ideas you can start today is worth a read first, since a grant reviewer wants to see a clear, specific business behind the application, not a work in progress.
Final Thoughts
Because this grant explicitly rewards “digital readiness,” the strongest applications usually connect the free courses you completed to a real, specific plan, not just “I want to grow my sales,” but something like “I’m using this grant to build out an online store and run my first paid social campaign.” If digital marketing genuinely isn’t your strong suit yet, working through a practical guide like Digital Marketing For Dummies before you apply can turn a vague plan into specific line items a reviewer can actually picture funding.
It is also worth pairing this application with a broader income strategy rather than treating it as your only shot. Our post on 7 top-earning side hustles to start in 2026 and our roundup of powerful platforms to make money online in 2026 are both good next reads if you want other funding-adjacent income streams running while your Digital Ready application sits in the monthly review pool.
This grant isn’t hiding, it is just quiet. The application window is open right now, the courses take under two hours, and unlike most funding opportunities you’ll find today, you don’t have to wait until next year to try.
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