If you want to hire a new marketing director, you can look up salary trends to discover how much you need to pay them. Remember a budget describes your project in numbers just as your proposal describes it in words. To create an effective budget, make sure you know your project thoroughly. Many funders will look at the budget component of your proposal before they read anything else.

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

To prepare for anomalies without disrupting operations, https://nerdbot.com/2025/06/10/the-key-benefits-of-accounting-services-for-nonprofit-organizations/ you should regularly review and adjust the contingency fund based on your financial situation and any emerging risks. Setting aside a portion of the budget (typically 5-10%) as a reserve will help your organization handle unexpected challenges like sudden drops in donations, emergency repairs, or economic downturns. While variations in funding may be beyond your control, make sure to monitor your expenses.

Distribute the Available Funds

There are hundreds of things that one needs to consider before the final budget of an organization is charted. In the case of that, the above example may be of interest as it is a detailed guide to making a good budget. Be sure to consider inflation, potential cost increases, and one-time expenses. Your budget is a recipe for financial health over the forthcoming year, but don’t ignore the health status you expect when closing the current year. Clarify who will oversee different aspects of the budget as your project takes shape and outline the processes that will guide them.

What are the basic purposes of budgeting?

Download it so that you may then open and make whatever changes you need to until you can have the budget document you need. If you are going to start making your nonprofit budget, then you should know exactly how you should go about in doing so. In order to help you out with that, here are the steps that will allow you to properly create your very own nonprofit budget.

• You might be looking at a nonprofit budget example or template thinking, “This is a lot of work.” Sure, it needs some upfront investment of your time, but it’s totally worth it.
• It’s particularly useful for tracking annual income sources, expenses, and for preparing financial reports that support strategic planning and decision-making processes.
• They come in different varieties to give you more choices for a reference!
• There should be enough lines in your budget to provide for a comprehensive understanding of the financial situation.
• Having extra cash can help stabilize your nonprofit and absorb an unexpected delay in receiving funds, a shortfall in revenue for a special event, or unbudgeted expenses.
• It is the best way to organize all the things efficiently like how to get an amount of money to complete a specific program, how much money we need, and where this money will be spent.
• Contact us if you have any questions about our non-profit templates free resources or NGO templates free downloads and budget for nonprofit template outlined in the sections below.

Using the budgets, you can determine where you’re losing and earning the most. Cash flow refers to the monthly movement of money coming in and out of your organization. Tracking this number tells you how much you have in the bank at any given time. This information is hugely important, because it shows you the best (and safest!) times to spend. Write down every possible expense you can think of, and then ask around to see what you’ve missed. Everyone in your nonprofit will have different expertise, so check in on what they might know that you don’t.