Creating a winning grant proposal includes many moving parts. While crafting a strong narrative is a more obvious piece of the puzzle, it’s important to also consider the role a strong grant budget will play in winning a funding award.
A grant budget template creates a simplified process for making this happen, application after application.
In this guide, we will explain the key components of winning grant budgets, budget examples, and grant budget templates from experts that you can download and adapt for your organization.
Let’s dive in.
A grant budget is a detailed outline of expected expenses and income that are directly related to your grant proposal request.
For this reason, a grant budget often only reflects a portion of the total expenses your organization needs to operate. Ultimately, the grant budget helps a funder understand the costs that are required to implement the program or project that you are requesting funding for.
For those periodic times when a grant will fund general operations, an organizational budget will do.
Most of the time, however, a grant project budget should only showcase the expenses and revenue related to completing the initiative outlined in your grant proposal, such as staff salaries and benefits, supplies and equipment, or contracts.
In either case, almost all funders will require a grant budget included in your proposal request. It is important to understand the expectations of the funder and align your budget with those requirements.
Outlining the financial plan for your project provides a different perspective about how the grant funding will come to life.
While your grant narrative explains your project in detail, a grant budget allows a funder to understand what it takes financially to implement it successfully.
Most funders want to know exactly which line items the grant request will fund and how it will be used to create the intended impact of the program.
A strong grant budget shows funders that your organization has put strategic thought into your proposed plan and that the funding will be used thoughtfully and carefully in implementing it.
Jacob Chase, expert grant writer and consultant, explains:
"Funders want to see that the organization has thoroughly considered the financial aspects of the project....and that resources are allocated to activities that directly contribute to the project's success." — Jacob Chase
Lastly, showcasing the expected revenue plan for funding an entire program allows funders to feel confident that their gift will support a program that can be successfully implemented and is sustainable. This is important because most funders will not fund an entire program budget, and they’re more likely to consider it a successful investment if they can see how you will fully fund the work.
A grant budget template provides a starting point for creating custom budgets for grant applications.
It can be an overwhelming task to start from scratch every time, and the truth is your grant budget is not something new—it is being built from existing budgets and financial data within your organization. A nonprofit grant proposal budget template, therefore, makes it easier for grant writers to create clear, concise budgets that will support a successful application.
Using a grant budget template can simplify the process of developing your grant project budget to best suit specific grant applications.
A grant proposal budget template is an essential tool for any successful grant writer. Like we mentioned above, grant budgets are something that should stay fairly consistent between applications, and so there is no reason to be starting from scratch every time.
Grant budget templates help you:
It’s essential that every budget includes a comprehensive look at the costs involved in the proposed project. How much of the project depends on the type of proposal. Are you working on a general operations request, program grant application, or capital request? These can impact the information included in the budget.
Check out this article for more detailed information on the types of grant budgets you might use.
For now, we’ll offer a high level overview of information that is essential to any grant budget so that you can get started creating your own grant proposal budget template.
Usually a grant proposal budget starts with personnel costs. This section can include:
Next, are the Indirect costs. These are those expenses that are required to run the organization overall, such as:
You will also need to include direct program costs. These are expenses incurred specifically for implementing your proposed projects or programs. If the program were eliminated, these expenses wouldn’t exist, as they are only directly related to that program.
Additionally, if a staff cost or indirect cost can be traced directly for a program, it is important to make note of that. For example, if 30% of a staff’s time goes towards a program, then it can be allocated here. Be sure that your staff cost is not counted twice! Using a grant program budget template that lays this out strategically will ensure you do this correctly.
Some common program costs include:
After getting clear on the expenses related to your organization and program, it's important to outline your expected revenue sources. Some common sources of revenue include:
When preparing a grant budget for your nonprofit organization, it can be helpful to view multiple grant budget examples to gain perspective about how to set yours up for success.
Family Service Association (FSA): This grant proposal is for a community block grant focused on youth development to expand services and cover staff salaries. The budget does a good job including the various required areas, and also includes an additional column that explains exactly what the request will fund.
Sacramento State University: This budget proposal is for a program that has unique staffing needs and offers a good example on how to outline various commitments, benefit levels, and staffing changes that may fluctuate seasonally.
Nonprofit Works offers a sample grant budget that puts the revenue on top and includes all relevant expenses with details.
Leveraging the information in this article, you can move forward with making your own grant budget template. Organizations may choose different formats for these, such as a grant budget template excel or a google sheet, but the overall goal should be the same: that it is accurate and easy to use and replicate for future grants.
You can follow these steps to create your own grant budget template:
Looking for a little extra help? You can also download our grant budget template here!
It should be pretty clear by now that using a grant budget template can simplify the process of creating a successful budget for every grant application. This tool will become an essential part of your grant strategy and support your growth and capacity to win more funding.
What will you do with all this free time, no longer spent stressing over budget creation? Try out a 14-day free trial of Instrumentl to start finding mission-aligned grants and put those budgets to more use.
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