Starting a business? Learn what DC can do for you, money-wise

D.C.’s Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development is consistently trying to encourage more individuals to start more small businesses in the District. Part of what DMPED uses as encouragement? Incentives.

These incentives can take many forms — from grants to tax credits and rebates. Do you know which incentives your small business is eligible for? No? Well now there’s an easy way to find out.

DMPED recently released an incentives dashboard located at incentives.dc.gov. The site allows visitors to browse all possible small business incentives, or use the “wizard” to determine which incentives might be the best fit. It’s simple — input your businesses location (or location of interest), sector, structure (for profit or nonprofit) and industry and the tool will tell you which available incentives you might want to pursue.

Check it out

The Incentives tool fits in with a DMPED trend of making government data more available and accessible to D.C. residents. In January 2016 DMPED released an Economic Intelligence Dashboard that provides a one-stop-shop for economic data like population, income, affordable housing and more. And then in May 2016 DMPED added a Ward Indicators Tool that shows D.C. government investment projects started and completed in each neighborhood since the beginning of 2015.