Make Sure Your Budget Tells Your Story: The Spreadsheet

Your budget is part of your grant application.

OK, that’s obvious. It’s one of those items with a little red star next to it in every grant portal, indicating that it’s required. So clearly, it’s part of almost all grant applications.

But what I mean is, your budget is part of the story your grant application is telling. Budgets enhance and support the story you tell in your narrative, and not just in the written budget application. Your actual budget spreadsheet needs to help guide reviewers toward an understanding of what you are proposing to do. This means that in an ideal world your budget:

Makes sense with the content of your application. You say you’re going to do 10 trainings. But you only budget for five. You probably know why, but a funder probably won’t unless it’s somehow indicated in your budget spreadsheet.

Fits the scale of your application. What level of impact will your application have? Your budget should fit that level of impact, not just in terms of what you are asking for from the donor, but in terms of overall costs. If it’s not obvious that your budget is in line with your operational scale, you need to add some explanatory information like a total cost column.

Lays out your investment plan. Does your application talk about how much more impact you can have with investment in your organization? Show that investment – is that new staff? More supplies for programs? Are you shifting costs to maximize impact in a certain area? Make sure that comes through in your budget.

Breaks it down. I’m a big fan of showing the calculations behind your costs. It helps clarify what your exact expenses are, both for funders, and for you.

Shows your work. There’s a lot of good ongoing conversations (and worry and stress) about organizational overhead. Whenever it’s possible with a funder, spell out what your operational/overhead costs are within your direct costs. As every nonprofit knows, a lot of ‘overhead’ costs are crucial program support costs that make your work function. Your budget is a place to make a case for that. Can you detail what roles are included in supporting staff? Can you lay out what supplies and materials include? If you put it in the spreadsheet it’s easier to lay out the case for what this vital funding does in your budget narrative.

Looking for a budget template to implement all this in? There’s a ready to use spreadsheet in our free Resource Library.

Coming soon, the other half of your budget story – the budget narrative!