Business

How to Prepare a Grant Proposal Budget

The budget plan for grant proposal can be a bit of a hard task for grant writers and is it is not easy as writing goals and objectives of your grant proposal. But knowing how to write and present the budget and the cost of the project for grant proposal can make writing the grant less exhausting and stressful. The key to this is presenting the grant proposal budget in a presentable manner that will make a good impression to funders. Here are some useful tips.

• Print the grant proposal on a new and clean page.
• Organize the figures correctly and appropriately.
• Double check the figures.
• Use headings to highlight “Budget Category,” “Requested Funds,” “Local Contributions,” and “Project Total.”

How Do You Make a Budget Plan for a Nonprofit?

For any grant proposal, the budget plan has two sections—income and expenses.

Income. The income statement can be separated into two general categories: the “earned and contributed” category, also called the revenue (contract or fee income), and the “support” (grants and contributions) category.

When developing the income section be sure to include:

• The product and service which you will charge
• The number of products and service
• The people who will use

Expenses. The expense is anything concerning the payment of people. This includes:

• Salaries for employees
• Benefits for salaried employees

How to Discuss the Budget in a Nonprofit Grant Proposal

• Check first with the foundation to which you are applying to identify whether they limit the amount of indirect cost or to the management plan and fundraising expenses.

• Keep in mind that the project budget should be written clearly, reasonable, and well considered. It is also a good idea to keep a worksheet of budget assumptions in case some ask how you computed the budget.

• If the foundation agrees to support a proposal with 100% of the project costs, then it should include both income and expenses. The incomes should be written first then followed by the expenses.

Grant Proposal Tips for Nonprofits

• The need statement of your grant proposal should be written clearly to describe the need for your project and will meet the problem of the community.

• State why your organization’s plan is different and better from other non-profits.

• Highlight and show how your grant proposal will make difference to the community.

• Eliminate the use of jargon. Make your grant proposal as simple as it could be.

• Review your grant proposal. Or have some who don’t know your project to review it. If he or she can understand your proposal, then your proposal template is good enough for grant reviewers.

Dos and Don’ts of Grant Proposal Budget

Here are the dos and don’ts of grant proposal budget.

Dos

• Write your grant budget proposal in a presentable manner.
• Organize and align the figures correctly.
• Write accurate and genuine figures for the budget.
• Include relevant information for the project such as who, what, why, when, where, and how.
• Review your grant proposal thoroughly.

Don’ts

• Few or no facts provided to support the budget plan of the grant proposal.
• Not preparing in advance or writing the grant proposal budget ahead of time.
• Estimating too much the budget or setting an unrealistic amount of money.