Where can I find examples of nonprofit budgets? Knowledge Base

It’s ideal for nonprofits looking to maintain transparency and accuracy in their financial records, helping ensure that funds are allocated efficiently and appropriately towards their mission goals. These templates are customizable and created in an appropriate format to define all things clearly. It is an important financial tool to manage the expenses and revenue of an organization. Nonprofit organizations receive donations and volunteer service to achieve the desired goals. If you have a responsibility to create it, then it isn’t easy to design it from scratch. The budget template for the nonprofit organization helps you do it correctly.

Step 2: Define the Amount of Income

This means that they have more income than they do expenses, which is a good position financially. The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed.

Nonprofit Monthly Budget

A budget describes your project in numbers just as a proposal describes it in words. Often funders will look at the budget component of your proposal before they read anything else. To help you through the budgeting process we’ll walk you through every line item you might need to include and show you how to create your own nonprofit organization budget template. Most likely, your organization’s executive director will lead the budgeting process, but a nonprofit accountant can also provide support. Considering how important the role of nonprofit organizations are in the society, it is just right to secure their planned undertakings. Through it, their institution can carefully set things up way before any project takes place, revamping its efficiency during the actual implementation.

Estimate And Categorize Expenses

Book a demo with ThankView to find out how our automated video platform can help you reach your donors without those heavy print and postage costs. If you’re running events or have a new program coming up, you’ll probably need to https://nerdbot.com/2025/06/10/the-key-benefits-of-accounting-services-for-nonprofit-organizations/ print materials to let people know all about it. Group your print and postage costs together here, so you can get a feel for how much you’re spending on sending out materials to your audience.

We hope that you will be able to use this resource to understand the concepts and steps and to implement this valuable process at your nonprofit. You can use ideas from examples of nonprofit budgets to create the one that’s right for you. According to the National Council of Nonprofits, about 8% of 501(c)(3) organizations manage budgets of over $1 million per year.

We leave this step until last because some funders, including many government funders, will not allow fundraising expenses to be charged to their grants or contracts. Regardless of whether a funder will pay for fundraising expense, it remains part of the total cost of running each program and we need this information to be truly informed. In this step you apply the allocation methods described above to the various direct costs that are shared between programs, which may include administration and fundraising cost centers. For the earlier office supply example, you would add up how many FTEs work in each program area and calculate a formula as a percent of The Key Benefits of Accounting Services for Nonprofit Organizations the total number of staff.

Fluctuating Income Sources

• So needless to say, the budget has a very important role for the organization.
• This guide will provide startup nonprofits with an overview of budgeting — what information to track and how, and how to analyze your organization’s financial health.
• If you’re ready to dive into creating budgets for your nonprofit, there are various templates available online to help you get started.
• You’ll thank yourself later for having worked towards a long-term plan from the start.
• Since your nonprofit is new, you don’t have historical numbers to look at and base your projections on.

Here’s a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to building a budget that supports your nonprofit’s mission effectively. Understanding nonprofit budgeting is only one part of the equation; accurate accounting practices are equally essential. Once you have created your budget, it’s important to review it often. This will help ensure that your estimates are accurate and that you’re on track to reach your financial goals.

Nonprofit Budget Templates

• When putting in the numbers for your revenue, make sure you know exactly where your funds will come from.
• Givebutter’s top-rated tools are free because of donor tips, which helps it maintain the lowest pricing in the industry.
• For a non-profit organization, donations and grants are may the only way to meet the expenses that they face in helping others.
• Apart from fundraising, nonprofits may occasionally feed volunteers or entertain potential donors as part of their development efforts.
• Take note of precisely where and how your funds are being allocated to ensure these are all accounted for mission-related purposes.

They can be one time, recurring, or anything in between—if it costs you, then it’s an expense! The closer to accurate you can get documenting your expenses, the easier it’ll be to stick to your budget. A nonprofit budget is crucial as it helps you keep a check on your long and short-term goals.

Nonprofit Grant Proposal Budget Template

• Additionally, determine a timeline that ensures approval prior to the fiscal year-end.
• The closer to accurate you can get documenting your expenses, the easier it’ll be to stick to your budget.
• These numbers will often be estimates based on your goals or what you earned and spent last year.
• This is also sometimes called a “broad scope budget” or an “annual budget” because it gives you a full picture of what the coming year should look like.
• It demonstrates your ability to responsibly manage financial resources and provides a roadmap for activities in the upcoming year.

Many nonprofits seem to not only operate on shoestring budgets but are also proud of it. Some nonprofit leaders may even be reluctant to show a surplus in their books, fearing the perception that they are not putting their resources to good use. Donors and partners like to see how many dollars are spent on the nonprofit’s mission versus executing the mission. List expenses in the high-level categories of staff, contractors, occupancy, and support expenses (which include all other program and operating expenses).