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5 Important Things While Applying For Business Grants For Women

Posted by admin on September 4th, 2010

Do you own a small business? Are you looking at funding your business? If yes, you can apply for business grants meant for women. If you desire to expand your small business and need funds, don’t look any further. Government grants are your solution. They are free, which means you do not have to re-pay the money. It is free money, meant to support enterprising women. Though grants for woman are the best means of pumping funds in your business, not many people are successful in receiving grants. The problem lies with their grant application. In spite of having a genuine requirement, people do not write good applications and miss this opportunity. Here, we give a skinny on some of the best ways of writing grant applications.

* Cover Letter – The first step to a good grant proposal is the cover letter. It gives an idea about your requirements and is the key to your success. A good cover letter is like the ‘title’ of a book. A catchy title attracts readers. Similarly, a well-drafted cover letter induces the reader to look into your proposal. Keep the cover letter short and crisp; do not stuff it with too much information. Type it neatly, without any spelling, grammatical or typographical errors. Print the cover letter on your company’s letterhead if you have one. So, get your first step right by creating an attractive cover letter.

* Summary – Along with the cover letter, the summary of your proposal also plays an important role. When applying for business grants for women, you must write an attention-grabbing summary. Pick up points from your proposal and highlight them in the summary of your proposal.

* The 3 C’s – Complete, clear and correct, these are the three C’s of good grant writing. The information you provide should be complete in all aspects. Fulfill all the requirements while applying for a grant. Not just that, the information should be correct, do not fudge any details, be honest about your requirements. Moreover, do not give a ballpark figure about the estimates, give proper statistics/numbers. The evaluator will appreciate precise and clear information.

* Review – Proof read your grant proposal, in fact read several times. Be meticulous with details and get your proposal reviewed by a third person. Ensure that the reviewer is not related to your business and is not a part of your proposal writing. You need an unbiased opinion. Your business grants for women will be successful when written well with care and thought.

* Follow the rules – There are certain rules and regulations while applying for a grant. Follow them properly and do not deviate from the instructions while filling the application. If you don’t stick to the rules, chances are, your proposal might get rejected.

Keep these simple tips in mind while writing an application for business grants for women and you can be assured of success. Most of the proposals are rejected due to an inappropriate application. If writing a proposal on your own seems to be a bit difficult, you can hire the services of a professional.

Do you own a small business? Are you looking at funding your business? If yes, you can apply for business grants meant for women. If you desire to expand your small business and need funds, don’t look any further. Government grants are your solution. They are free, which means you do not have to re-pay the money. It is free money, meant to support enterprising women. Though grants for woman are the best means of pumping funds in your business, not many people are successful in receiving grants. The problem lies with their grant application. In spite of having a genuine requirement, people do not write good applications and miss this opportunity. Here, we give a skinny on some of the best ways of writing grant applications.

* Cover Letter – The first step to a good grant proposal is the cover letter. It gives an idea about your requirements and is the key to your success. A good cover letter is like the ‘title’ of a book. A catchy title attracts readers. Similarly, a well-drafted cover letter induces the reader to look into your proposal. Keep the cover letter short and crisp; do not stuff it with too much information. Type it neatly, without any spelling, grammatical or typographical errors. Print the cover letter on your company’s letterhead if you have one. So, get your first step right by creating an attractive cover letter.

* Summary – Along with the cover letter, the summary of your proposal also plays an important role. When applying for business grants for women, you must write an attention-grabbing summary. Pick up points from your proposal and highlight them in the summary of your proposal.

* The 3 C’s – Complete, clear and correct, these are the three C’s of good grant writing. The information you provide should be complete in all aspects. Fulfill all the requirements while applying for a grant. Not just that, the information should be correct, do not fudge any details, be honest about your requirements. Moreover, do not give a ballpark figure about the estimates, give proper statistics/numbers. The evaluator will appreciate precise and clear information.

* Review – Proof read your grant proposal, in fact read several times. Be meticulous with details and get your proposal reviewed by a third person. Ensure that the reviewer is not related to your business and is not a part of your proposal writing. You need an unbiased opinion. Your business grants for women will be successful when written well with care and thought.

* Follow the rules – There are certain rules and regulations while applying for a grant. Follow them properly and do not deviate from the instructions while filling the application. If you don’t stick to the rules, chances are, your proposal might get rejected.

Keep these simple tips in mind while writing an application for business grants for women and you can be assured of success. Most of the proposals are rejected due to an inappropriate application. If writing a proposal on your own seems to be a bit difficult, you can hire the services of a professional.

Nike

Posted by admin on September 4th, 2010

Nike, Inc. (NYSE: NKE) is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered in the Portland metropolitan area of Oregon, near Beaverton. It is the world’s leading supplier of athletic shoes and apparel[2] and a major manufacturer of sports equipment with revenue in excess of $16 billion USD in 2007. As of 2008, it employed over 30,000 people world-wide. Nike and Precision Castparts are the only Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the state of Oregon.

clubwear”>http://www.himfr.com/buy-clubwear_top/”>clubwear topThe company was founded in 1962 as Blue Ribbon Sports by Bill Bowerman and Philip Knight, and officially became Nike, Inc. in 1978. The company takes its name from Nike (Greek pronounced , the Greek goddess of victory. Nike markets its products under its own brand as well as Nike Golf, Nike Pro, Nike+, Air Jordan, Nike Skateboarding, Team Starter, and subsidiaries including Cole Haan, Hurley International, Umbro and Converse. Nike also owned Bauer Hockey (later renamed Nike Bauer) between 1995 and 2008.[3] In addition to manufacturing sportswear and equipment, the company operates work camps in third world countries that exploit underprivalaged people so the western world can wear the latest sports apparel and has retail stores under the Niketown name. Nike sponsors many high profile athletes and sports teams around the world, with the highly recognized trademarks of “Just do it” and the Swoosh logo.

Nike, originally known as Blue Ribbon Sports, was founded by University of Oregon track athlete Phil Knight and his coach Bill Bowerman in January 1962. The company initially operated as a distributor for Japanese shoe maker Onitsuka Tiger, making most sales at track meets out of Knight’s car.

The company’s profits grew quickly, and in 1966, BRS opened its first retail store, located on Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica, California. By 1971, the relationship between BRS and Onitsuka Tiger was nearing an end. BRS prepared to launch its own line of footwear, which would bear the newly designed Swoosh.[4]

The first shoe to carry this design that was sold to the public was a soccer cleat named “Nike”, which was released in the summer of 1971. In February 1972, BRS introduced its first line of Nike shoes, with the name Nike derived from the Greek goddess of victory. In 1978, BRS, Inc. officially renamed itself to Nike, Inc. Beginning with Ilie Nastase, the first professional athlete to sign with BRS/Nike, the sponsorship of athletes became a key marketing tool for the rapidly growing company.

The company’s first self-designed product was based on Bowerman’s “waffle” design in which the sole of the shoe was inspired by the pattern of a waffle iron.

By 1980, Nike had reached a 50% market share in the United States athletic shoe market, and the company went public in December of that year. Its growth was due largely to ‘word-of-foot’ advertising (to quote a Nike print ad from the late 1970s), rather than television ads. Nike’s first national television commercials ran in October 1982 during the broadcast of the New York Marathon. The ads were created by Portland-based advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy, which had formed several months earlier in April 1982.

Together, Nike and Wieden+Kennedy have created many indelible print and television ads and the agency continues to be Nike’s primary today. It was agency co-founder Dan Wieden who coined the now-famous slogan “Just Do It” for a 1988 Nike ad campaign, which was chosen by Advertising Age as one of the top five ad slogans of the 20th Century, and the campaign has been enshrined in the Smithsonian Institution.

Throughout the 1980s, Nike expanded its product line to include many other sports and regions throughout the world.

Nike produces a wide range of sports equipment. Their first products were track running shoes. They currently also make shoes, jerseys, shorts, baselayers etc. for a wide range of sports including track & field, baseball, ice hockey, tennis, Association football, lacrosse, basketball and cricket. The most recent additions to their line are the Nike 6.0 and Nike SB shoes, designed for skateboarding. Nike has recently introduced cricket shoes, called Air Zoom Yorker, designed to be 30% lighter than their competitors’.[8] In 2008, Nike introduced the Air Jordan XX3, a high performance basketball shoe designed with the environment in mind.

Nike positions its products in such a way as to try to appeal to a “youthful….materialistic crowd”.[9] It is positioned as a premium performance brand. However, it also engineers shoes and apparel for discount stores like Wal-Mart under the Starter brand.

Nike sells an assortment of products, including shoes and apparel for sports activities like association football, basketball, running, combat sports, tennis, American football, athletics, golf and cross training for men, women, and children. Nike also sells shoes for outdoor activities such as tennis, golf, skateboarding, association football, baseball, American football, cycling, volleyball, wrestling, cheerleading, aquatic activities, auto racing and other athletic and recreational uses. Nike is well known and popular in Youth culture, Chav Culture and Hip hop culture as they supply urban fashion clothing. Nike recently teamed up with Apple Inc. to produce the Nike+ product which monitors a runner’s performance via a radio device in the shoe which links to the iPod nano. While the product generates useful statistics, it has been criticized by researchers who were able to identify users’ RFID devices from 60 feet (18 m) away using small, concealable intelligence motes in a wireless sensor network.

In 2004, they launched the SPARQ Training Program/Division. It is currently the premier training program in the U.S.

In the video game Gran Turismo 4 there is a car by Nike called the NikeOne 2022, designed by Phil Frank.

Nike’s world headquarters are surrounded by the city of Beaverton, Oregon but are technically within unincorporated Washington County.

From Nike’s perspective, the company, one of only two Fortune 500 employers still headquartered in the state of Oregon (Precision Castparts is the other), has such a large payroll, that it should not be annexed to Beaverton without its consent. Nike prefers to work with the Washington County Government as it develops and expands its headquarters. Annexation would cost the company $700,000 per year in increased taxes for services it already receives from the county and various special-purpose districts.

From Beaverton’s perspective, the company’s expectation for special treatment is counter to the city’s desire to have zoning and other laws apply equally to all businesses, big and small. A nearby Costco store, one of that company’s earliest, was annexed into Beaverton years ago without incident, and Beaverton’s focus on additional annexation during the 21st century reflects a desire to streamline both city and county government by having metropolitan-area services handled by cities instead of counties.

The Oregonian dates the bad blood between the two back to the Nike purchase of 74 acres of nearby Beaverton land which soon fronted the Jared Co-operation. When Nike proposed expanding their headquarters in that direction, Beaverton at first wanted them to build housing near the MAX station and criss-cross the property with two public roads, expectations defined by the zoning already in place when Nike bought the land. Beaverton’s request was mostly consistent with Metro’s transit-oriented development plans for the region. After a year, which included a threat by Nike to move 5,000 jobs out of the state, Beaverton backed down from the requirement for housing, but the lack of accommodation was something that Nike did not forget.

The annexation standoff soon led Beaverton to attempt a forcible annexation. That led to a lawsuit by Nike, and lobbying by the company that ultimately ended in Oregon Senate Bill 887 of 2005. Under that bill’s terms, Beaverton is specifically barred from forcibly annexing the land that Nike and Columbia Sportswear occupy in unincorporated Washington County for 35 years, while Electro Scientific Industries and Tektronix get that same protection for 30 years.

Punta Cana and Dominican Republic Real Estate – What to Expect in 2009!

Posted by admin on September 4th, 2010

December 2005 was a different time in Punta Cana and the Dominican Republic. At that time, the Punta Cana and Dominican Republic real estate markets were experiencing what some would consider atypical growth.

Demand was far greater than the supply, a thriving influx of international buyers, lowest interest rates in the history of the Dominican real estate market, both US dollars and Dominican pesos, national and international economic stability, high rental income, mega tourism developments sprouting like wild flowers, international financing, bonds were issued, free favorable press, and tourism numbers at an all time high. Buyers were looking for anyone developing or selling near the tourism hubs of the island.

Those were the good ol’ times! It was about being in the right place at the right time.

Many considered that there was no reason for the Punta Cana and Dominican Republic not to be known as the “Home of the World”; however, it was also emphasized that it was imperative for the real estate industry to take some necessary measures in order for development to continue in an organized fashion.

Fast forward to the end 2008. Today, the real estate industry is also experiencing a completely atypical situation, which unfortunately can’t be called positive, but can’t be called negative either. It is going back to what is considered a normal, standardized real estate market. Supply and demand more in balance than in years past.

Any real estate developer can tell you that it is not normal to sell an entire development in less than a year. Normal would be for at least two years to sell a small to medium size development and perhaps more time on the larger more ambitious developments within closed gated communities. Of course, it is normal to think that things are cooling off after coming out of the “BOOM” we have been experiencing for the past few years. Instead of cooling off, I would call it business as usual, going back to normal, supply and demand in equilibrium!

At the moment it is important to sit down and analyze the “foundation” of our market as we take the necessary corrective measures based on lessons learned.

First, let’s look at the foundation. Why the Dominican Republic? Why Punta Cana? What makes us so special? Why are Punta Cana and the Dominican Republic relevant investment markets? Why alternatives for second home buyers? Why should it be considered ideal places for retirement?

Excellent geographical location that allows us to have year round tropical climate. The cold countries remain cool.

We continue to have some of the best white sand beaches and turquoise colored crystal clear waters

Legal Framework – No Restricitions for Foreigners, Equal Ownership Rights

Economic Stability

Social Stability

Personal Safety, Dominican Republic crime rates are low in comparison to other Caribbean Neighbors

Modern and adequate transportation and telecommunications infrastructure (airports, seaports, highways, telephone, internet). There is room for improvement, but we are headed in the right direction.

Extensive complementary offer (water sports, golf, restaurants, grocery stores, resorts, casinos)

Ecotourism

The Dominican People – Always friendly and hospitable!

Beyond these points, we must recognize that there has been encouragement for foreign investment by the local government. Foreign direct investment more than doubled in 2008, according to statistics from the Center for Exports and Investment (CEI-RD). Investment in 2008 totaled US$2.35 billion, for a 55.1% growth from 2007.

Just last week, December 12, 2008, Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez broke ground for US$1.4 billion dollars VistaCana Resort & Country Club in Punta Cana. President Fernandez and the project’s main promoter, Salvador Termín headed the groundbreaking ceremony, with Tourism minister Francisco Javier Garcia also present. Mr. Termin spoke about the world crisis we are experiencing, and emphasized that they have prepared themselves for the crisis. “We have decided to continue to invest, since that is what we do. We believe in the Dominican Republic since it continues to be a safe place to invest with lower risks in comparison to other places around the world”.

Venezuelan investors began construction of the tourist complex on six million square meters of land. The complex will have 6,000 residences, a 100 room business hotel, a 27-hole golf course and a 180,000 square meter artificial lake integrated to the beach area, and built at a cost of arond US$1.4 billion dollars. This will bring 20,000 new jobs to Punta Cana when concluded.

President Fernandez said “this development is proof that within the global crisis that we live today, foreign companies like the developers of VistaCana, testify that the Dominican Republic still has economic and financial security for world wide investors, developers and end users alike. 1,500 homes have been purchased by an investment fund for North Americans retirees out of Washington D.C. plus more than 200 units sold to individuals.” President Fernandez added that in addition to VistaCana, just last week he was in La Romana for the groundbreaking event for the mega development Playa Nueva La Romana by Spain’s Grupo Piñero, owners of the Gran Bahia Principe Resorts. This represents US$2.5 billion dollars in foreign investment. In addition, in the coming days, President Fernandez will be alongside the Prince of Monaco, in the groundbreaking ceremony for Punta Perla located in Cabeza de Toro near Punta Cana, with another US$1.6 billion dollars in foreign investment from the U.K.

That is a total of US$5.5 billion dollars of foreign investment in the month of December alone for the real estate industry. These are big numbers from world wide known companies and investors that have very deep pockets to conduct feasibility and market studies. They have decided that the Dominican Republic is the safest place with the best investment opportunities in the Caribbean and perhaps the western hemisphere.

In addition to encouraging foreign investment, local government has achieved:

Enactment of new laws that attract retirees and baby boomers. Incentive for pensioners and annuitants

Reduction of taxes related to real estate

Firm decision to improve communication infrastructure to the tourist areas

Efficient and better system for the approval of new developments

Public sector working hand in hand with private sector to help develop joint activities aimed at strengthening the real estate industry.

We can say that without a doubt we have a solid foundation for sustained growth in the real estate industry; however, no longer is location, location, location the most important part of deciding where to buy real estate in the Dominican Republic. Investors and buyers alike are looking for security, security, security.

First and foremost, the security and safety of their investment. Investors and buyers understand that property acquired in the Dominican Republic is not going to suffer the effects of devaluation that other world markets have experienced. This is for several reasons:

Historically in the Dominican Republic property values have always tended to go up and never down

The Dominican Republic does not have a secondary market for the marketing of securities where good and bad mortgages come together. We all now about the USA mortgage mess that has property values on a downward spiral.

Given our past experience with the banking system, the mortgages could be considered “healthy”, meaning that the market value of the property exceeds the value of mortgage.

Second, security of ownership rights, of course. Foreign buyers are guaranteed the same rights as those available to Dominican buyers.

Third, security of return on your investment. Real estate-tourism products have the potential to generate revenue because they can be rented to employees in the tourism sector and also because each day is further developed the so-called “residential tourism.” Refers to those tourists who prefer to rent a villa or apartment to take a more familiar experience and learn more about the area of access.

What do we need to do as industry leaders and real estate professionals?

Find end users: Avoid clients who seek an immediate capital gain. This refers to buyers/flippers who have neither the intention nor the ability to close on the real estate transaction. The best way is to ask for a significant down payment that the buyer/flipper will lose if decides to walk away from the real estate transaction.

Pre Qualify Buyers: Provide the buyers with the proper forms and contac information for pre qualification with local banks. This will prevent from future headaches in the future.

Perform target marketing plans for buyers and investors required for the particular development.

Carry out strategic alliances with government institutions to promote the Dominican Republic as a tourist destination, not just a real estate destination.

Join forces with high profile tourism developments for further commercialization of the Dominican Republic.

Be aggressive in marketing products in more than one way: create alliances with international real estate agencies, non traditional advertising, speaking engagements, eMarketing, and so on.

The most important thing is to understand that we have a good product. We are in a cycle of the market where change is inevitable and considered normal. There is no need to panic. Punta Cana and the Domincan Republic have become world destinations. We still have many great years of selling Punta Cana real estate and Dominican Republic real estate. We just need to roll up our sleeves, continue to work with ethics, be honest, creative and pro-active. We have no doubt, sooner or later Punta Cana and the Dominican Republic are destined to become the HOME OF THE WORLD!

We expect many good things to come in 2009 and are very positive that we will make a difference and separate ourselves from the rest of the crowd. With the alliances that we are forming with real estate agencies from around the world, we will definitely position ourselves as the #1 real estate company for developers, buyers, sellers and investors that are looking for the right company to assist with buying or selling real estate in Punta Cana and the Dominican Republic. Hope we can be of assitance in 2009! We will help you find the right home in Paradise!

La Costa Destinations International Realty provides detailed information about Punta Cana real estate, resorts, hotels, beaches, golf courses, weather, and the Punta Cana international airport. Dominican Hospitality & Market Knowledge with American Business Standards. Your #1 source for Punta Cana realty. Visit http://www.GoPuntaCanaRealEstate.com, home to the best realtors in the Dominican Republic.

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5 Important Things While Applying For Business Grants For Women

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Archive for the ‘Loan and Grant’ Category

5 Important Things While Applying For Business Grants For Women

Nike

Punta Cana and Dominican Republic Real Estate – What to Expect in 2009!

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