Nonprofit Budgets : Home

The National Council of Nonprofits says budget is a guide that can help a nonprofit plan for the future as well as assess its current financial health.

This LibGuide will offer resources, including guides and best practices, templates and samples, for nonprofits as they budget for their future. 

The Jitasa Group defines the following budgets:

• Operating budget: This is the master financial plan described above that outlines all of your nonprofit’s predicted revenue and expenses for a given year.
• Fundraising campaign budget: These budgets help track upfront spending associated with revenue-generating initiatives, especially highly involved fundraisers like events or GivingTuesday campaigns.
• Capital budget: This budget projects the expenses associated with multi-year, long-term projects (such as capital campaigns) and details the revenue you’ll use to cover those costs.
• Program budget: Since launching new programs often causes your organization to incur many one-time expenses, you may create separate budgets for them while you get them off the ground.
• Grant proposal budget: Grantmakers want to know that the organizations they award funding to will manage those grants wisely, so they’ll usually request that a proposed budget be included in applications. Most funders ask to see all revenue and expenses associated with the initiative you plan to fund with the grant, so reference your program or capital budgets as you create these.