Our Programs
A small town doesn’t die when people leave. It dies when the last plumber does.
We select established businesses in small towns — the ones already open, already serving the town, already carrying more than their share — and give them professional help they could never buy. Then, once they’re standing, we help the town tell the world it’s worth moving to.
What a selected business receives
Up to $5,000 of work
Professional marketing and business work, donated in kind by Annie’s Action AI at its published rates, earned in stages as the business does the work.
Training and a coach
Coursework with trainers working alongside the owner, and a coach to help decide what to fix first — a sign, a website, a way of being found.
People from their town
A board of residents from the business’s own town who visit in person, ask real questions, and stay involved for the whole term.
What it costs the business
Nothing. No fee, no match, no repayment. And no business in this program is ever required to buy anything from Annie’s Action AI — during the grant or after it. That sentence is in the agreement they sign.
What it asks of the business
Complete the coursework. Meet agreed milestones on an agreed schedule. Work with the coach. Receive visits from the town board. Take part in the interviews. Report honestly, including bad news. And allow the outcome to be published — whatever the outcome is.
How a business is chosen
- They apply. A public form. Anyone may apply.
- We check the town. Three tests, all objective, all set before any application was read: the town’s size, a county economic measure, and whether we are already working there. A business that fails a test is told which one and why.
- The town’s own board interviews the owner, together with our interview division. This is where the finding gets written that the whole grant rests on: what is this town short of, and how does this business supply it?
- That board recommends. Our main board decides.
Mark Hope, who is involved both in this Foundation and in the company donating the work, does not vote on individual awards. That is not a formality. It is the single provision that most protects this program, and we would rather state it plainly than have someone discover it.
The community boards
Every town in this program seats its own board, made up of people who live there. They help decide which local business receives a grant and write down why the town needs what it does. They visit the business in person, on a regular schedule. They receive the reports Annie’s makes about its own work and test them against what they saw with their own eyes. They take part in interviewing the owner. And they recommend to our main board whether a grant continues.
It asks a few hours every couple of months. It is unpaid, like every seat here. It does not require any knowledge of marketing, or a business of your own, or any fundraising. What it requires is knowing your town and being willing to say so out loud when something isn’t right.
We would rather have boards that argue with us than boards that agree with us. If you would tell us a business isn’t doing the work, or that we chose the wrong one, you are exactly who we’re looking for.
Where the money is, and where it isn’t
No cash is paid to any business. What a business receives is work — donated by Annie’s Action AI, priced at its published rates, tracked to the dollar in an account the business, its town board, and this Foundation can all see.
The Foundation holds a separate restricted fund for the hard costs donated labour can’t cover: paid advertising, printing, signage, filing and registration fees. Those are our dollars, disbursed against documented cost, accounted for on our books.
Donations to that fund go to hard costs for these businesses. If you want a small town to keep the service it has left, that fund is the place to put it.
We publish what happens. All of it.
We decided this before we had a failure to be uncomfortable about. Outcomes are published either way — including businesses that close. We describe what was tried and what was learned. We do not blame an owner for a hard year in a hard place. Where a small-town owner would be identifiable and harmed by the detail, we report the outcome without the story.
A charity that only publishes its wins is a charity that is marketing. We would rather be believed.
Stage two: the town itself
The businesses are not the point. The town is the point. Once a town’s core businesses are standing and its services are real again, the same advertising capability turns on the community — marketing the town to people in larger towns. Somewhere to move. Somewhere to open something. Somewhere to buy a house. More residents broaden the tax base, and a town with a tax base can pay for itself.
This stage is not funded yet. We would rather say that than let it read as a promise. It is the direction the program is built toward, and how it gets paid for is a decision our board has not yet made.
Who qualifies
- The town — below a set population, in a county carrying economic measures above the state average, and somewhere we already work.
- The business — established, open, and operating today. Supplying a service the town is short of. Unable to practically pay for this level of help. Willing to sign, to be visited, to be measured, and to be written about.
- Not eligible — businesses that haven’t opened yet (a separate education program for people starting out is planned — tell us if that’s you); businesses that want a discount rather than a program; and any business in which Mark Hope, Annie’s staff, or a member of this board holds an interest, or which is owned by a family member of any of them. No exceptions and no case-by-case.
The honest paragraph
Small Town Grants is a program of We Help People Everywhere, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. The services granted are donated in kind by Annie’s Action AI, a for-profit company. Mark Hope is involved in both.
We are not hiding it. We are telling you in the same typeface as everything else on this page, because the alternative is you finding out somewhere else.
What we have done about it: the Foundation owns the criteria and makes every selection, boards of local residents choose and monitor the businesses, a separate division interviews independently, Mark does not vote on individual awards, no recipient owes the company anything, and the relationship is disclosed on every document, on our filings, and here.
We do not promise rankings, traffic, leads, revenue, or that any business will succeed. We provide work, training and support, and we report honestly on what happens.