Digital Main Street

About Digital Main Street

Digital Main Street (DMS) is a program focused on assisting main street small businesses (MSB) with their adoption of technologies. Through a partnership with FedDev Ontario and the Province of Ontario, grant opportunities are available to enable this digital transformation process. DMS is proud to offer a suite of industry leading courses, created specifically for small business owners. These courses will allow you to explore Digital Transformation, strategies for relaunching your business and more. Each course is completely free and accessible, and built in bite size clips so you can complete them at your own pace! DMS also has local Digital Service Squads available to help build out your digital transformation plan. Over the last five years, DMS has helped numerous businesses across Ontario to start and boost their online presence. 

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Digital Transformation Grants

The Digital Transformation Grant (DTG) program is designed to assist small businesses with adoption of technologies. The program will provide training, advisory support and grants to brick-and-mortar small businesses looking to increase their capacity through digital transformation. The DTG provides $2,500 of up-front non-repayable funding which is designed to help brick-and-mortar businesses grow their online presence. The grant can be used in many areas to improve the business's online presence including: 

• hiring a creative agency in order to build up and maintain an online presence (social media, website design and upkeep, product shots)
• website design and improvement, or enabling e-commerce capabilities
• paying for content production (photo, video production)
• software for graphic design, productivity software, or social media specific software
• digital training courses
• buying new hardware like POS systems or a computer in some cases (capped at $1,000 maximum)

In addition to a $2,500 grant for digital transformation, businesses will also take part in an online training program to gain knowledge and skills on how to build their business online, and have access to their local Digital Service Squad to help them through building out their digital transformation plan. 

Applications for Digital Transformation Grants are closed. 

Canada Digital Adoption Program 

The Canada Digital Adoption Program (CDAP) helps Canadian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will be able to assess their digital readiness and apply for grants and loans online. This funding will help them: leverage e-commerce opportunities, upgrade or adopt digital technologies, and digitize their operations to stay competitive and meet their customers’ needs in the digital marketplace. Two streams are available: 

Grow Your Business Online
Apply for a micro-grant and access e-commerce advisors to help you go digital and take advantage of e-commerce opportunities.

Apply Here

Boost Your Business Technology
Apply for a grant to help you develop a digital plan and leverage funded work placements to help with your digital transformation.

Apply Here

Successes

All Figure

All Figure is using a Digital Transformation Grant to implement a search engine marketing and social media strategy to help drive more traffic to its website and bricks-and-mortar store.

{Pocket}CHANGE

{Pocket}CHANGE used a $2,500 Digital Transformation Grant from Digital Main Street to give her website more than just a facelift. The grant helped her improve her website’s customer experience making her website easier to navigate and easier to find, which has resulted in more online and in-person sales.