10+ Nonprofit Budget Examples to Download

This knowledge can be particularly helpful when working with TechSoup’s resources. When it comes to planning an event, executing it successfully depends on how prepared you are! A nonprofit project budget shows you what you have to gain without accidentally dipping into your operational expenses.

• Variable costs are those that vary based on need or market prices.
• In order for nonprofits to determine how much money they require to operate, they need an accurate way to account for all income and costs.
• Editable fields enable you to overwrite example figures (including revenue and expenses) with your own.
• So the budget document has to have the names of all the different origins of debt.
• While the goal is to maximize resources and achieve mission-driven objectives, nonprofits often encounter significant challenges in their financial planning.

The Budget-Building Book for Nonprofits: A Step-by-Step Guide for Managers and Boards

The closer to accurate you can get documenting your expenses, the easier it’ll be to stick to your budget. Now https://nerdbot.com/2025/06/10/the-key-benefits-of-accounting-services-for-nonprofit-organizations/ that you know what should be included in your nonprofit budget, it’s time to start creating one. The process of creating a nonprofit budget is similar to the process of creating a budget for any other type of business. His growth-hacking abilities have helped Donorbox boost fundraising efforts for thousands of nonprofit organizations.

Free Nonprofit Budget Template

Once you have your total revenue estimated, compare that amount to your total expenses. If revenue doesn’t cover expenses, you’ll need to adjust either revenue, expenses, or both until totals are equal. Again, be careful not to overestimate your revenue just to get a zero bottom line.

Program expenses 🎒

Create a schedule of the wonderful and/or desperately needed items you could include if you had confidence that you and the board could raise X% more money. Showing them what is needed or possible can be an incentive to commit to more fundraising. Some companies make small mistakes while creating the financial budget; that’s why their budget is not successful. They face many financial difficulties which may lead them to failure. Below we discuss the mistakes that companies or organizations make with their solution.

How to Raise Funds for a New Nonprofit

This is particularly useful for organizations seeking to strengthen board engagement in financial matters. The templates facilitate informed discussions about resource allocation and financial performance, contributing to a more robust governance structure. This focus on good governance makes them a solid choice for organizations of all sizes, from small community groups to larger, established nonprofits. One key to writing strong grant applications is being clear about how you’ll use the funding you’re requesting. 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. A nonprofit operating budget template can help you make sure you’ve hit all the bases.

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• Our team is here to give you more details and guides on how to grow your fundraiser.
• Here’s a very basic example—but remember that your organization’s budget might be more complicated than this (or maybe even simpler!).
• While a calculation can be completed for a single program or activity, we highly recommend that these concepts and practices be used throughout a nonprofit.
• But, there’s a place in the nonprofit universe for a surplus in the budgets too.
• This is super easy to do using a tool like Excel or Sheets, where you can use the “SUM” formula to quickly add up the totals in your columns.

“Our nonprofit will increase overall contributions by 20% by the end of 2024 through partnerships with local businesses and corporate sponsors.” Unlock the secrets to transforming your business from a job into a profitable, cash-generating machine. This infographic will guide you in choosing the right BoardSource template for your organization.

Involve your Board, your staff, and your volunteers in creating the budget and reviewing your revenue and expenses. This not only helps create a more accurate and comprehensive budget but also ensures buy-in across the board. It’s also very important to the success of your programs that your revenue and expenses estimates are realistic.

• A nonprofit budget is a financial document that provides a detailed view of how the organization plans to spend its money, and what it aims to achieve over a 12-month period.
• Creating lasting relationships with your suppliers and partners will save you time, energy, and even money!
• This nonprofit budget example caters to nonprofits who need to send cash flow projections and budgets to funding organizations in order to secure grant monies.
• It doesn’t matter if you’re applying for a government, corporation, or foundation grant, a well-crafted budget will make or break your proposal.
• Explore all of the different sources of funding for nonprofits, popular funding models, and five simple steps for kickstarting a funding strategy for your organization.
• If you realize your utility costs have crept up since last year you can negotiate for a better deal.

By doing so, you can keep an eye on your big-picture forecast with the assurance that every detail of your accounting is in order. A staff’s responsibility to procure a budget defines the need for a non-profit budget standard template as provided. No matter what the size of your business, having the budget plan will always help you have control over your The Key Benefits of Accounting Services for Nonprofit Organizations expenses always. Even small and medium companies need a budget to keep their income and expenses on the check.

Master Your Nonprofit’s Budget with Nonprofit Budget Templates from Smartsheet

Use a free template to get you started and once you’ve added any unique requirements to it, this can be reused for subsequent budgeting sessions. It also helps to use a standard format for budgets as you can compare them and track growth and changes over the years. It demonstrates your ability to responsibly manage financial resources and provides a roadmap for activities in the upcoming year. Plus, with a budget plan you’ll be better able to manage operations with limited funds. You might not be able to predict what your donors give, but you can control a lot when it comes to spending.