I believe the IRS should include books like mine to every American when they send you your tax forms. That way every American would know how to get their tax money back, because even though I call this “free money,” it really isn’t free. This is money that you gave to the government to pay your taxes and now you can get it back.

IRS data show that each year about 131 million individuals file tax returns and pay an average of $7,633 to the IRS [1]. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget and recent independent studies show that the government gives out over $1.5 Trillion a year to individuals through its free money programs [2]. One and one half trillion dollars in government money programs, divided by 131 million taxpayers, means that the average taxpayer is getting $11,450 a year in cash back from the government in free money programs. Are you getting yours?

No wonder the government is in debt!

You’re probably not getting yours. And why not? Because the government does not advertise. An even greater reason you may not actively seek this money is because a lot of us live with misinformation. Most Americans think that government money programs are for everyone else but them, for instance only the poor, minority or friends of the president. The facts show otherwise. I bet you did not know that:

• Only 12% of Government Handouts Go To The Poor [3]
• Only 25% of Government Programs Have Income Requirements [4]
• Seniors Making Over $150,000 Receive 200% More In Government Benefits than Seniors Making Less Than $15,000 [5]
• People Making Over $100,000 Get More in Grant Money for College Than People Making Less Than $100,000 [6]

The rich and famous, including Donald Trump, H. Ross Perot, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, all made millions as private citizens with the help of government money programs.

It’s understandable that most people don’t know about all government money programs. I don’t even know about every government money program available and I’ve been studying these programs for over 25 years. But what should surprise you, because it surprised the heck out of me, is that there are millions of Americans who are eligible to call the government today and get thousands of dollars from some of the government’s basic programs. For example:

• 4 Million Seniors can receive up to $1,000 from Medicare but don’t apply because they are unaware of the program [7]
• 6 Million Families are missing out on free health insurance for their kids [8]
• 10 Million Families can get up to $4,000 a year for groceries but don’t apply [9]
• 800,000 College Students can receive grants up to $4,050 but don’t apply [10]
• Single Moms can receive some of the $673 million in collected unclaimed child support payments [11]
• 29 Million Seniors don’t know they can get colonoscopies, bone mass measurement, prostate cancer and glaucoma tests paid for by Medicare [12]

Most people know that grant money refers to money that the government gives out and you don’t have to pay it back. And that’s true But what most people do not know is that most free money programs are not called “grants” by the government, they’re called “direct payments.” It is very easy for someone not to know all about government jargon. I’ve even seen government officials get thoroughly confused on this issue. Here’s the data from Budget of United States Government 2005, Historical Tables, page 117(2).

And this does not account for other free money programs the government has like the one they call “forgivable loans.” This reminds me of when I used to ask my father to lend me $5.00. I usually never paid him back.

There are people who come up to me on the street and tell me they called the government about a program and the office said that they make too much money. Well, that may be true for that program. But the important thing to remember is that the government has thousands of programs covering all incomes and backgrounds. Just because you are not eligible for one program, does not mean that there aren’t dozens more around the corner that may have your name on it. Remember what I said earlier: only 12% of government money goes to the poor and only 25% have an income requirement.

I make a good deal of money and I was able to get government money and other grants to pay for almost half of the costs of sending our two sons to college. I’ve seen housing programs at the local level where they consider families disadvantaged if their incomes are under $80,000. There are even government programs for women entrepreneurs where they consider you disadvantaged if you have $750,000 in the bank. Wow, that is almost a millionaire. Even the programs that give people the basic necessities of life have income requirements for a family of 4 at $38,000 a year.

Sure, there may be one in 100 of you reading this that will make a call to the government and get a check in the mail next Thursday that will solve your problems. But that is unlikely to happen to the other 99%. If you are one of those lucky one in a hundred, call me and I’ll put you in my next infomercial. The people I put in my commercials are the people who say, “Hey, look. I made one phone call and got a check in the mail.” The rest of us have to work at it.

Getting government money is like looking for a job. When you knock on one door and ask about a job, and they tell you that you are not qualified, you don’t go home and wait for them to change their mind. No Way. You’d never find a job that way. If you really want a job, you go to the next company and ask about their qualifications, and then the next company, and then the next. This is the purpose of this book. It gives you not one, but a list of programs to keep contacting.

We constantly hear about government budget cuts and that makes people believe that government money is going away or will soon be gone. It’s all lies in my mind. Look at the facts below. Every year for the past 30 years the amount of free government money given out to individuals keeps growing. It keeps increasing no matter if it’s the republicans or the democrats who are in charge.

So don’t believe the headlines about budget cuts. What really happens is that some programs will not grow as fast as in the past, but will still grow. Others will continue to grow as normal and very few if any, will actually decrease. The total amount of available money will continue to increase. These scare headlines actually create greater opportunities for you to get the money. Most people will believe the headlines, causing fewer people to apply for the funds that will actually be available.

So many people worry their heads off about what they are going to do when the get an application. They worry so much that they are buying professional grants writing services to the tune of hundreds or even thousands of dollars just so they don’t have to worry when they get an application in hand. That’s like buying a prom dress before you are invited to the prom.

Nine out of ten times you will not need help in filling out an application. Most free money programs to pay for your bills, education, health care, housing and even business require just a few pages of blanks to fill in. A major source for business money is only one page long to get $150,000. There are only 15 questions to answer to apply for a $4,000 grant to fix up your home. And artists can apply for grants by just filling in a form with 6 or 7 questions.

And if you decide you need help once you get an application you can get people to help you for free. Many offices offer this help at no charge. Also there are special government offices around the country that help business and entrepreneurs fill out forms. They are called Small Business Development Centers and are run by your state government. There are over 1,000 of these offices around the country. For a Center near you contact 1-800-8-ASK-SBA or www.sba.gov/sbdc/sbdcnear.html.

The only likely area where you might need professional help with an application is if you are a non-profit organization. And if you are a non-profit or want to be a non-profit here are the 2 best places to get help. Don’t hire anyone until you check out the services and help that they can offer you.

A. The Foundation Center of New York City maintains a database of all foundations that provide money to non-profit organizations or individuals. The information is available on the web at fdncenter.org or from their participating libraries by contacting 212-620-4230

B. The Guidestar Company in Williamsburg, VA also maintains a database of foundations and they can be reached at 757-229-4631 or at www.guidestar.com. Much of their database is accessible for free on the web.

That is a conservative estimate of how long it took us to find and collect all the information for one of my books. And I feel that we are probably the country’s leading expert in government money programs. So imagine how long it would take a non-expert to collect this information. Sure you can do it. There is no magic to what we do. It is mostly just a lot of hard work. But the average person does not have the time, the patience, or the expertise to take on such a task. Instead of doing it yourself, if you hired someone, even at $10 an hour, it would cost $25,000 to gather this information.

Our books give you the easiest way to take ONE BIG GIANT STEP towards getting free and cheap money for your anything. You won’t have to spend the thousands of hours it takes in chasing down these little-known programs. And more importantly, you won’t have to deal with the bureaucratic dance of wrong numbers, unanswered phones and voice mail in order to get the necessary applications.

Our books are not intended to be a complete collection of free money programs. The rain forest could not handle it if that were true. They are intended to give every American an understanding of the major programs available and a number of minor ones that we found to be the most interesting.

It’s impossible for any one publication, database or anything else really, to be able to collect everything in the universe on a given subject. I know I’m biased, but I certainly believe that we are the best people in the world for collecting information on government money programs. I also know that we cannot possibly get every single program that is available.

One problem is that programs come and go. Our world is changing every second. It is a big complex society we are living in, and people are making decisions throughout the day that make subtle or big changes which affect the contents of this book. Budgets keep changing. Priorities keep changing. People keep changing. Offices keep changing.

A bigger problem is that the world of free money is enormous. Preparing a book for a national audience makes us excellent at identifying national and state programs. But truthfully, it is sometimes beyond our capabilities to completely cover all local, county and nonprofit programs. First of all, if we did collect all of these programs in the country, you would not be able to pick up the book. There are thousands and thousands of local communities in the United States and each of them can have 5 to 50 programs. Fifty times 5,000 would be 250,000 programs. We would never finish researching.

Our goal is to arm you with knowledge. We want to show you the money, but you are going to have to do a little work yourself.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I have to warn you of the truth. In our modern society, it is virtually impossible to expect to include every program possible and have every item completely accurate. The problem is that the world is too big and it is always changing. Every day programs come and go. Every day people change their address, phone number and websites. It is just a fact that these things happen in our modern society.

But remember, if a listing in one of my books leads you to a non-working number or website, it does not necessarily mean that the program is gone. In all likelihood it is still there, but has changed since we completed our search. Here are some tricks you can try to locate the program:

• call the information operator and ask for the telephone number for the agency listed in the program description
• search the web for the agency name in any of the web search engines like www.dogpile.com or www.google.com
• contact the Federal Information Center at www. pueblo.gsa.gov, or call 1-800-FED-INFO. This is a free service that will help you locate a federal government agency
• go to www.govengine.com on the web for a listing of most federal, state and local government agencies
• contact your federal, state or local elected official. They all have staff people who will help you find what you need at any level of government
  

You are going to find programs that excite you at first and then when you read further it may seem that you will not qualify. Or you will gather more information on a program in this book and you will run into some phrase, or sentence in the description that makes you feel you do not have a chance. You may encounter things like:

A. “all the money is given out by June 30th” and it is already September 1st

B. “the money is only for people who live in the country” and you live in the city

C. “the money goes to non-profit organizations” and you are not one

D. “you have to come up with 20% of the money for the project” and you don’t have any”

E. “the money is only for people who live in Minnesota” and you live in New Jersey”

F. “the money is for people making less than $60,000/yr” and you make $70,000”

Don’t look at phrases like these as impassable boulders that stand in your way of getting the money you need. In reality, they can simply be small pebbles in the road that you may not even feel at all. If you don’t follow up, you will never know. Here’s what I’ve seen happen in each of these situations:

A. “all the money is given out by June 30th”: The end of the accounting year for most government agencies is September 30th, but the agency can start giving out more money beginning October 1, and you can be the first in line. I think you can wait another 30 days for your money.

B. “the money is for people who live in the country:” That may be so. But it will still pay to get the details of the program to see if there is something in the description that was not obvious to others. A young man in Boston was trying to get money from a program that gave money for teenage entrepreneurs that lived in the country. He lived in Boston. When he got the materials it said that it was for people in the country, but the description also said that it was for people who wanted to start lawn mowing businesses. That is what he wanted to do and he convinced the office that he was qualified. Government officials do not know everything. Get the facts and find out for yourself.

C. “the money is for non-profits”: for about $100 in fees you can become a non-profit. Just call up the IRS and your state capital and ask for the office that registers non-profit organizations. Fill out the paperwork. Don’t worry. You’ll do it wrong. Send it in anyway. And they will send it back telling you how you messed up and then you will correct your mistakes. Another way to solve the problem is to find a local non-profit, like a community college, church, or community group. Tell them you would like to use their name to apply for a bunch of money and that you will give them 15% if you get the money. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

D. “you have to come up with 20% of the cost of the project”: There is always more than one way to come up with the extra money than having the cash in your pocket. Some programs allow you to provide services or equipment that you already have as part of your 20%. You may be able to use your sweat as your contribution. The fact that you will work for free in helping to get the house built or the refurbishing done is worth something. You can call yourself a general contractor or just a handy man who pounds in the nails. Or you may need equipment, like the use of a car, to get the project done. This can be your car. The one that you already have and it can count as a percentage of the project.

E. “the money is only for people in Minnesota”: Contact them anyway. It’s likely that if this is a unique program then the program administrators will be aware of similar programs around the country that do the same thing. People doing similar work around the country have a tendency to organize and share information on how they are doing. We are one of the best organized countries in the world. If there are 10 people in the country doing the same thing they will start an association, a newsletter and have annual meetings.

F. “the money is for people making less than $60,000”: We all know that rules are made to be broken and many bureaucrats who hand out money have the power and authority to break the rules. It is especially easier for them to bend a few rules if they like you or they like your project. Or they may be having trouble giving away all their money this year and you are one of the best ideas they have seen. Remember, bureaucrats are human too. They have feelings. Like all of us, unless they are having a bad day, their instinct is to help. Always give them a chance to see if they can help.