3 small-cap dividend stocks I'd buy in March

People often see FTSE 100 giants as the ones for providing dividends and look to smaller companies for growth, but these three prove you don't have to be big to hand out the cash:

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Windows of opportunity

Look at Tyman(LSE: TYMN), a firm that supplies components for the doors and windows business. A quick glance at its last five years' performance shows steady growth in earnings, and there are two more years of the same forecast.

But a closer look shows a company whose progressive dividend policy is rapidly turning it into a cash cow, as each year's payment is boosted way ahead of inflation. The year ending December 2015 saw a 9.4% rise in the dividend, and analysts are expecting the 2016 cash to be hiked by a further 7.2% with rises of 13% and 9.5% penciled in for this year and next respectively.

The yield should reach around 3.8% this year, and even if inflation rises above the current 1.6%, as it is almost certain to do, it won't take many years of dividend progress like that to see you taking home a very tasty effective yield.

Tyman's 2016 results should be with us on 8 March.

Insurance picks and shovels

Charles Taylor Consulting(LSE: CTR) provides professional services to the insurance industry, which means it should have the potential to do well whoever is winning and losing at the sharp end. February's pre-close update (ahead of 2016 results, due on 9 March) told us things are going as expected, which suggests a flat year for earnings -- last year saw a 40% rise after several tough years for the insurance business, and analysts are expecting modest earnings growth for 2017 and 2018 too.

Forecasts would drop the P/E of the 217p shares to under 10 by 2018, and to me that seems cheap for a company that generates strong cash flow which it is able to convert into very tempting dividends.

The dividend was shaved slightly in 2013 but still yielded 4% that year, and we should be seeing around 4.7% for 2016 rising to the 5% level this year.

With an upbeat first half under its belt, and an interesting approach to the acquisition trail, I can see a few years of nice rewards for Charles Taylor shareholders -- and those dividends could well be accompanied by a rising share price as a bonus.

No cuckoo here

Audio-visual and document solutions distributor Midwich(LSE: MIDW) floated on AIM in May 2016, and already its shares are up 33% to 312p. That's largely down to a spike that resulted from the firm's January trading update, which told us that revenue for 2016 should come in at around £370m, up 18% over its previous year -- and the company said it "anticipates reporting adjusted profit before tax for 2016 comfortably ahead of its previous expectations".

The first half has already delivered a 12% rise in revenue, which was pretty good for a company whose performance, as chairman Andrew Herbert told us at the interim stage, "tends to be slightly weighted towards the second half of the year" -- and that mooted 18% total rise suggests the second half was very good indeed.

We'll have to wait and see what the final dividend will be like after the firm delivered a maiden interim payment of 1.53p per share, but analysts are already predicting a yield of 3.7% for 2017, rising to 4% in 2018, more than adequately covered by anticipated earnings.

Results are scheduled for 14 March.

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Alan Oscroft has no position in any shares mentioned. The Motley Fool UK has no position in any of the shares mentioned. We Fools don't all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors.