Nonprofits' budgets are as important as capital organizations' budgets. Funders, donors, and other stakeholders interested in supporting a charitable cause, as well as investors in capital organizations, seek their resources to be used correctly. 

A Grant Budget template is the proper document to maintain sources of funding and expense in order. Thanks to this copy, your nonprofit can clarify all transactions performed for your organization for department, category, and project.

Keep reading this article to learn more about this applicable document and how to use it for charitable purposes.

A grant proposal budgeting is a rough document summarizing all the specific project's costs. This file includes income, revenue, and direct and indirect costs generated during the project.

A project budget justification breaks down and explains the itemized costs associated with the proposed project. Sometimes, it can delve into expenses and explain the purposes of those costs in detail. 

• A grant proposal proves that your company considers the real costs of running a specific project.

• It shows stakeholders and external parties how much an entire program costs.

• If you have a nonprofit organization, you can demonstrate to donors how your nonprofit spends donations. 

Grant budgets outline all the income and expenses your nonprofit organization receives throughout a specific period or project. In other words, grant budgets summarize grant funds and how they are spent during the period. Consequently, your accurate budget for your nonprofit should include the following:

Income and Revenue

Since your nonprofit works through grant funding, it receives money and resources from donors who do not expect to receive anything in return. Some of the most common types of grants are the following:

• Individuals. Independent people who collaborate with your nonprofit or a specific project.

• Events. Most nonprofits receive funds from events that aim to collect money, resources, or donations for a particular cause. 

• Gifts-in-Kind. External parties who want to support your cause give gifts or donations to your nonprofit.

• Corporations. This item corresponds to other organizations wanting to help your nonprofit through funds.

Grant Budget Direct Costs

Crucial costs for you to run a particular project or program are considered direct costs. 

• Personnel and staff. Here we can consider administrative costs and all the people who develop specific functions within your organization.

• Equipment. Your staff uses all the physical tools, machines, and other stuff to carry out activities and tasks directly related to a particular project. 

• IT / Software. All the non-physical tools that your organization uses to run programs or projects.

• Materials and external contractors. If your nonprofit’s mission is to build infrastructure, materials, and external resources are relevant. It includes people or companies specially hired for the project. 

• Supplies. Project costs involve all the “little” things your nonprofit needs to work on, such as printer toners, papers, and special items for particular projects.  

• Rent and utilities. Your nonprofit requires a physical space to perform its activities. Rent is related to the organization in general. 

Grant Budget Indirect Costs

These correspond to overhead expenses that support your organization's infrastructure. These are associated costs.

• Administrative staff and leadership costs. Your nonprofit has multiple employees working all the time. We mean human resources personnel, officers, accountants, assistants, executive directors, etc. The salaries of all these people are considered indirect costs.

• Overhead for nonprofit organizations. Here you describe rent and utilities in physical spaces where you develop activities that are not directly related to a particular project. In this section, you can also include organizational insurance, membership, compliance, and rental fees for office equipment.

• Organizational equipment. Here you describe all the tools and equipment staff utilizes for running the general activities of the organization and not a particular project. 

• General expenses. In your organization’s operating budget, you cannot forget water, gas, electricity, and Internet bills.

• Marketing and advertising. The indirect costs you incorporate in your budget development involve promoting the causes of your nonprofit organization. You do this through marketing and advertising strategies. 

• Training and induction. Your nonprofit needs employees, staff, and volunteers who work daily to achieve goals and lead causes to fruition. You must often teach them to perform activities correctly, such as completing a grant application.

Keep in mind the following pieces of advice when building your grant budget. These will make it easier for you to complete your grant proposal.

Define your Budget as SMART Goals and Outcomes

Your grant budget proposal needs to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This way, your numbers accurately reflect the general and particular costs, providing funders, donors, and stakeholders with a great budget summary. 

Be as Accurate as Possible

Some nonprofit organizations believe that as they are not capitalizing, there is no need to be accurate with expenditures. WRONG! Nonprofit organizations should be as accurate as capital organizations. It means your corporation, NGO, or foundation should describe all the budget categories that are crucial to appear in the document. 

Include the Right Costs

Funders, donors, and stakeholders of nonprofit organizations expect that their money and resources are correctly allocated during the project's development. This way, it’s crucial that you define how many hours employees and volunteers will work and how much money you pay for their work. 

Your nonprofit shouldn’t operate on a shoestring since most funders expect that you spend a big part of the budget on administration for a successful nonprofit. In a nutshell, you should accurately calculate costs when budgeting to avoid inefficiencies and to ensure that funders maintain their trust in your organization.

Keep it Simple

Building your nonprofit budgeting involves including multiple categories, as mentioned above, and accurately defining the right costs. Still, it does not mean you must complicate the process excessively.  Just describe any item, the quantity, and the costs, and include a short description.

Integrate an Explanation of any Cost

Any funder and donor expect that their money is used as expected and in the cause they support. For this reason, it’s recommended that grant writers include clear explanations of the real numbers they’re coding. Try to explain how you determine the amount of money devoted to a particular activity or task. This practice also will help you to demonstrate confidence in your decisions.

Use Microsoft Office to Edit Templates Easily

Finally, using Microsoft Office applications will facilitate creating and editing templates. These apps include all the necessary tools to manage grant budgets successfully.

If you haven’t installed this bundle on your computer, you can acquire a copy of Microsoft Office 2021 Professional Plus Key Retail Global at €6,04 on RoyalCDKeys. Use Microsoft Office apps to build affordable and accurate grant budgets that make sense to your nonprofit. 

One of the paramount requisites by funders is the need for your cost explanation to be articulated precisely. The templates we give you below facilitate the introduction of funding sources, costs per operation, direct and indirect costs, and other categories. 

Nonprofit Grant Proposal Budget Template

Download it from Smartsheet.

This grant budget template is a spreadsheet document that makes it easier to record and track the incomes and expenses of nonprofits seeking funding for their organizations. This document works in a simple manner since you need only enter your nonprofit’s year-over-year actual and projected revenue and expenditures. This way, you can compare both periods and then check if the predictions and real.  In part below, you will find a revenue summary section that automatically calculates your total grant income on your behalf. It helps you to quickly determine your program’s financial sustainability for the next period.

SOMRC Basic Grant Budget Spreadsheet

Download it from Louisville.edu.

This SOMRC grant budget template is a spreadsheet that separates all the budget categories for better understanding and management of real numbers, incomes, and expenditures. It includes a section for salaries, fringe benefits, supplies, patient care costs, and other expenses. Thanks to this document, you can quickly note and describe money movements to explain to funders the exact spending of your nonprofit. 

Free Project Proposal Grant Budget Template

Download it from Smartsheet.

This template helps you to manage individual and interrelated budgets within your nonprofit. This way, stakeholders will have the correct financial details on hand. With this paper, you get the big picture of proposed budgets, letting you know if your project is well-managed. It focuses on ensuring that you can correctly calculate materials, labor, and general costs. Utilize this template to monitor differences between proposals and current budget amounts.

Project Manager Budget Proposal

Download it from ProjectManager.

This free document estimates all the costs associated with a new project. It showcases to stakeholders and funders possible charges and costs, which can ensure funding. However, you can use this template for any charitable cause or campaign and show that the benefits outweigh the costs.

This template provides a detailed breakdown of the financial support from stakeholders, sponsors, individuals, or donors. This Project Manager's budget proposal understands that the more detailed your proposal, the more accurate it will be and the fewer problems you’ll encounter.

Project Budget Template

Download it from Templatearchive.

This template corresponds to a spreadsheet document that allows you to easily calculate the price of all the cost categories involved in a particular project. This template allows you to create additional entries for all the budget line items you consider relevant to the project and your organization’s functionality. This template allows you to budget and balance using automated calculations accurately. This practice guarantees your grant narrative is supported by numbers and facts.

Budgeting and Business Proposal Excel Template

Download it from Exceldownloads.

This template is a basic spreadsheet document that will facilitate you to write a grant budget file. This document contains several categories to separate costs and expenses and check total costs according to the needs of your nonprofit. Categories are Staff, Equipment, Professional Services, and Accommodations. Moreover, it integrated a column where you can describe justifications and explanations of expenditures, just like many grants. 

Nonprofits, foundations, and corporations should be managed as thoroughly as capital organizations. No matter whether your main goal is to advance a charitable cause, you must present incomes and expenses to funders, donors, and any other funding source to clarify what your nonprofit is doing with its money during a specific program or project.

Many funders expect that the budget is managed and monitored in the best way possible, and the proper tool for this is the comprehensive documents we’ve shared above. With accurate documents like those, your funding opportunities will increase significantly, and you will obtain fringe benefits.

Please choose one of our templates and start to build your affordable document. To get other important tools and resources, please navigate our blog and prepare your nonprofit for success.