UK Small Business Grant Finder & Tracker Automation

Who This Is For

UK entrepreneurs and small business owners juggling tight schedules who want to find and apply for active grants without spending hours manually searching government portals. This automation is especially useful for founders who want to maximize grant funding opportunities with minimal effort.

What You Get

A fully automated workflow that:

1. Scrapes UK government and local council websites for active small business grants.
2. Filters grants based on your business type, location, and eligibility criteria.
3. Creates a personalized tracker in Airtable with deadlines, requirements, and status updates.

This automation helps you never miss a funding opportunity again and keeps your application pipeline organized.

Why This Matters

Grant applications are often time-sensitive and buried in bureaucratic websites. This automation cuts through the noise, helping you focus on building your business instead of chasing funding leads.

It complements tools like the UK Late Payment Calculator and UK Digital Product Idea Validator — helping you both recover money owed and secure new funding.

Automation Overview

Trigger

• Schedule — Runs daily to check for new grants.

Steps

1. Scrape UK government and local council sites for new or updated small business grants.
2. Parse and filter results by business type, location, and eligibility.
3. Create or update records in Airtable with grant name, deadline, link, and status.
4. Send a summary email (optional) with new grants found.

Outcome

You get a personalized, auto-updating Airtable base tracking all relevant grants — no manual effort required.

How to Use This Automation

Requirements

• A Make.com account
• An Airtable base with fields: Grant Name, Deadline, Eligibility, Link, Status
• Basic familiarity with web scraping and Airtable

Step-by-Step Setup

1. Create a new scenario in Make.com

   • Choose Schedule as the trigger (e.g., once per day)

2. Add a Webhook or HTTP Request Module

   • Use a web scraping service (e.g., Apify, [Octoparse]) or build a custom HTTP request to scrape UK government/local council grant pages.
   • Example URLs:
     • https://www.gov.uk/browse/business
     • https://www.gov.uk/business-finance-support

3. Parse and Filter Results

   • Use a Data Filter module to exclude irrelevant grants.
   • Use a Data Mapper to extract fields like Grant Name, Deadline, Link, and Eligibility.

4. Create Airtable Records

   • Use the Airtable > Create a Record module.
   • Map parsed fields to your Airtable base.
   • Optional: Use a Search module to avoid duplicates.

5. (Optional) Send Email Summary

   • Use Gmail or SendGrid to email new grants found each day.

Example Airtable Base Fields

Automation JSON Export

{
  "name": "UK Small Business Grant Tracker",
  "modules": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "type": "trigger.scheduler",
      "parameters": {
        "interval": 1,
        "unit": "days"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": 2,
      "type": "http.request",
      "parameters": {
        "url": "https://www.gov.uk/business-finance-support",
        "method": "GET"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": 3,
      "type": "data.filter",
      "parameters": {
        "filter": "contains(title, 'small business')"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": 4,
      "type": "airtable.createRecord",
      "parameters": {
        "baseId": "appXXXXXXXXXXXXXX",
        "tableId": "tblXXXXXXXXXXXXXX",
        "fields": {
          "Grant Name": "{{title}}",
          "Deadline": "{{deadline}}",
          "Eligibility": "{{eligibility}}",
          "Link": "{{link}}",
          "Status": "New"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

⚠️ Note: You’ll need to customize the scraping logic and Airtable IDs for your own setup.

Troubleshooting FAQ

Q: How do I ensure I’m scraping legally?

A: Always respect robots.txt, avoid rate-limiting, and scrape only public, non-password-protected pages. For complex sites, consider using official APIs or third-party scrapers like Apify.

Q: Can I use this with other grant sources?

A: Yes. Add additional HTTP request modules for each source. Just make sure the structure of the data is consistent or can be normalized.

Q: What if the grant page changes its structure?

A: You’ll need to update your parsing logic. Consider setting up error notifications in Make.com to catch failed scenarios early.

Q: How do I avoid duplicate Airtable records?

A: Use the Airtable > Search for Records module before creating a new one. Match on fields like Grant Name or Link.

Next Step

Want to build more automation recipes like this one? Or resell this as a lead magnet to UK entrepreneurs?

👉 Download the full automation recipe JSON and monetize it with our Prompt Pack Profit Calculator.

Or check out our Automation Workflow Tutorial to build your own profitable digital assets from scratch.