Johnson Ecommerce LLC
A grant pays for your software. We find it, win it, and build it.
There is funding set aside for small businesses and nonprofits that want to build something, and most of it goes unclaimed. We track down the grants you can actually win, write the application with you, and build the software the award pays for.
Nothing comes out of your own budget. If the grant isn’t awarded, you owe us nothing.
How it works
Four steps, and none of them involve writing us a check.
Grant money for technology and modernization goes unclaimed every cycle, mostly because the organizations it was meant for don’t have time to hunt for it or the words to apply for it. That part is our job.
We find the grants
We work through federal, state, local and private programs across the US, then read the terms on each one to confirm it allows paying an outside developer to do the work.
We match one to you
We look for organizations that genuinely fit a program’s criteria, then come to you with something specific: this grant, this amount, and this software it could pay for.
You approve, we apply
Your organization is the applicant. We prepare the application and write up the project, and nothing is submitted until you have read it and signed off on it.
Grant awarded, we build it
If the award comes through, we build the software and hand it over working. The grant covers the build, so the cost never touches your own budget.
The terms, in plain language
Here is exactly what you get, and exactly how we get paid.
We’d rather tell you the whole arrangement up front than have you find it in the fine print later. There isn’t any fine print.
What you get
- The software your organization needs, built and working.
- The grant research and the written application, at no charge.
- Nothing out of pocket at any stage. We never invoice you.
- Lifetime use of what we build, with no subscription and no seat charges.
- A funded project on your record, which makes the next grant easier to win.
What we keep
- The grant award. When the funds land, they come to us as payment for the software we built.
- The codebase. You get the working software and the right to use it for as long as you like.
- The right to build on that underlying work for other clients, unless we agree otherwise before we start.
- If you ever want full ownership (the codebase, the git repo, all of it), that transfer carries a separate fee.
No award means no build, no invoice, and nothing owed.
Who this is for
Registered US small businesses and nonprofits.
Registration is our only gate, because it is the gate on nearly every grant program too. Any registered entity qualifies: LLC, corporation, partnership, a sole proprietorship with a registration, or a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Small nonprofits tend to have the widest choice of non-repayable funding open to them, so if that’s you, there is probably more on the table than you think.
What a grant can fund
Small, sharp software that earns its keep.
We stay away from sprawling multi-year systems on purpose. The projects that get funded, get finished and actually get used are the focused ones, and these are the shapes they usually take.
An analysis tool for your own data
Load the sales, donation or inventory history you already export, and get forecasts, trends and plain-language summaries out the other side.
A website that actually works
A real site with the menu, the hours, the services and the prices on it, plus online booking or intake if you take appointments.
An internal dashboard
One screen that answers the questions your team currently answers by opening four spreadsheets and asking someone in accounting.
A client or donor portal
Somewhere for the people you serve to submit a form, upload a document, check a status or see their own history without emailing you for it.
An automated manual process
The weekly report someone rebuilds by hand, the intake sheet that gets retyped, the reminders that go out one at a time. All of that can simply happen instead.
An add-on to what you already run
A calculator, a searchable directory, a scheduling page or a members area bolted onto the site or system you already have.
No idea in mind? That’s normal, and it isn’t a problem. We come to these conversations with a list. Tell us what eats your week and we’ll tell you which parts of it a grant could pay to fix.
Why we work this way
The money to build this already exists. Most of the organizations it was set aside for never see it.
Grant programs for technology, modernization and capacity building are real and they are non-repayable. A striking amount of that funding goes unclaimed each cycle, not because nobody deserves it, but because finding the right program, reading the terms and writing a convincing application is a job, and small organizations already have a job.
So we took that job. We do the searching, the reading and the writing, we carry the risk of an application that doesn’t land, and we only get paid out of an award that would not have existed otherwise. You get software you could not previously justify buying, funded by money that was already earmarked for exactly this.
Questions
The things people ask before getting started.
Nothing out of your own pocket, at any point. The grant research is free, the application writing is free, and you are never invoiced for the build. Our payment is the grant award itself, which is money your organization would not have had otherwise.
Then nothing happens. You owe us nothing, we don’t build anything, and the time we spent on the research and the application was ours to lose. If another program looks like a fit, we’ll bring it to you and try again.
For the programs we pursue, yes. Plenty of grants are written specifically so a recipient can bring in outside help, and paying a contractor to deliver the funded work is an ordinary, expected use of the funds. We read the terms before we bring a program to you and we skip any that doesn’t clearly permit it. You will always know which grant we are applying for, so you can read those terms yourself.
Your organization is the applicant and the recipient. It has to be, because the program is for you and not for us. We do the research and prepare the application on your behalf, with your written permission, and you review and approve everything before it goes anywhere.
The grant cycle sets the pace, not us. Depending on the program, a decision usually lands somewhere between a few weeks and a few months after the deadline. The build is the fast part: because we keep the scope tight on purpose, most projects take days to weeks once the award is confirmed.
Most organizations don’t at first, and it’s the easiest part to solve. We arrive with concrete ideas that fit the grant, and the best ones usually surface in a conversation about what currently wastes your week. The list further up this page shows the kinds of projects that tend to work.
Yes, and they are often the strongest fit. Small nonprofits have access to a wider pool of non-repayable funding than most for-profit businesses do, and their day-to-day work is full of exactly the manual, repetitive tasks that small software handles well.
No. Sometimes there is no live program that matches your category, your state or your timing, and sometimes the project you want is bigger than a small grant can responsibly fund. We’ll tell you that plainly rather than talk you into an application that was never going to win.
Let’s see what you qualify for.
Tell us what your organization does and where it’s registered. We’ll go looking for funding you can win and come back with what we find. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing.