Deadline for $5,000 young entrepreneur bursary next week
July 7, 2025, 9:37 am
Ryan Kiedrowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
What would an extra $5,000 mean to your business?
The application deadline for the newly-launched Young Entrepreneur Bursary Program is coming up fast—July 14—and there’s potentially 57 young business owners across the province that could access $5,000 each.
Launched in the provincial spring budget, the bursary not only means cash for young entrepreneurs, but valuable mentorship opportunities, peer networking, and support from the business community across Saskatchewan.
“Saskatchewan’s future depends on the bold ideas and determination of its next generation of entrepreneurs,” Saskatchewan Chamber CEO Prabha Ramaswamy said. “The Young Entrepreneur Bursary Program ensures that emerging business leaders have the support they need to pursue their vision and contribute to a thriving provincial economy.
“We are proud to partner with the Government of Saskatchewan to reduce financial barriers and champion the growth of our province’s entrepreneurial talent,” said Ramaswamy.”
Eligibility for the Young Entrepreneur Bursary is open to business owners between 18 and 35 who operate a for-profit entity based in the province and have been in business for 10 years or less; with preference given to those with under five years of operation under their belts.
Applications opened back on May 21 and the initial recipients will be announced on Sept. 30. The Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce will be administering the three-year program with $285,000 from the provincial government each year through a network of 57 local Chambers of Commerce.
“We actually got a really good pile of applications,” said Ramaswamy. “We had approximately 235 applications from across 66 communities.”
There’s still some time to apply as Ramaswamy noted those applications are from around 65 per cent of the 57 Chamber regions.
“We would like to make a push for more applications from Chamber communities, so that’s what we’re going to be focusing on in the next couple of weeks,” she said.
Saskatchewan has a strong entrepreneurial spirit with a long history.
According to statistics from 2024, nearly 152,000 businesses call Saskatchewan home with 149,000 of those being small businesses; roughly 125 small businesses for every 1,000 people in the province.
After the July 14 deadline, applications will be grouped by region and judged locally. From there, a third-party adjudicator looks at the applications based on merit and regional distribution, ultimately selecting one per each of the 57 chamber regions.
Should there be no applications from a particular region, that bursary will be reallocated to a nearby region with high application volume.
The funding can be used in a variety of ways such as business development; operations and equipment; product or service expansion; and skills, training, and professional services.
As for the mentorship component of the bursary, recipients are required to attend at least two sessions in order to receive the final $1,000 in funding. There will be five mentorship sessions in total between October, 2025 and May, 2026 comprised of two in-person and three online.
“Part of the mentorship is going to be us giving them a free membership to the Saskatchewan Chamber for one year, and they also get complimentary tickets to two of our biggest events, which is Food, Fuel, Fertilizer Global Summit and PowerUp Summit,” Ramaswamy explained, adding that those added incentives would bring an addition $1,200 in value on top of the bursary amount.
“That is really important for them; the networking, making the connections, possibly linking up with established entrepreneurs, and then just some of the workshops we’ll have will be very useful,” explained Ramaswamy.
The bursary program itself is a great incentive to let those young entrepreneurs know they can stay in Saskatchewan and thrive.
“Something like this is a bit of a catalyst to boost entrepreneurial activity in our province, and even probably a catalyst to attract or keep young entrepreneurs in our province,” Ramaswamy said.
SM.jpg)
