Sample Itemized Budget For Grant Proposal

How Much Is The Standard Research Project Grant Amount

As of 2018, research project grants have an average of $535,239 in current dollars and $292,581 in constant dollars. That is, according to the National Institutes of Health .

Rest assured, there are many funders and grant plans to help you fund for research purposes, particularly when your objectives and causes are brilliant ideas. But, you have to work hard on how to divide the budget and to track the spending appropriately to ensure a successful funding application. And that is just what a research budget can help you achieve. Start breaking down your research costs now!

What Are The Benefits Of Using A Budget Proposal

A budget proposal breaks down the expenses youll incur during project execution. A clear budget proposal can help your team and others involved in the following ways:

While the purpose of a budget proposal is to receive funding or approval, you can also use your budget proposal as a budget plan for when the project becomes reality.

How Do You Write A Budget Estimation For A Grant

When constructing a budget estimation for a budget, follow the same format as the itemized budget or sponsor budget form for the readers to easily compare both documents. Make sure to check that the budget estimation is in line with the requirements of the granting entity.

Grant budgets are very significant pieces of a grant proposal. Budgets allow a grantor to estimate if a project will yield their expectations after a person, group, or organization proposes a project. It is necessary to make the grant budgets as accurate as possible to make sure there are no losses during the implementation of the project, and that the grantee will not shoulder any expenses that are not covered by the proposed budget. Make sure to write a comprehensive and accurate budget for the grant proposal by downloading 11+ SAMPLE Grant Budget Proposal in PDF only from Sample.net.

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Detailed Budget: Other Direct Costs

Describe Your Project Objectives

To introduce your project budget proposal, start with an overview of your project objectives. By explaining what your project is about and the goals you hope to achieve, you can provide context for your budget proposal. Without context, your potential stakeholders may have trouble understanding whatand whyyou plan to spend in certain areas.

You may include a budget proposal within a larger project plan, but budget proposals can also stand alone. If a stakeholder solely has a financial stake in your project, then they may not want to read about detailed project timelines and workflows. However, theyll need to understand the high-level purpose of the project to feel comfortable approving your project budget.

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What Is A Budget Narrative For A Grant

A budget narrative provides space for you to explain how you arrived at your grant proposal budget and expense categories, expand on the descriptions in your budget line items, and share any additional funding sources planned for the project.

So, while the grant budget paints a funding picture in numbers, the budget narrative expands on these rows of information and gives context and meaning. The budget narrative takes each component or category of your budget and provides further explanation or justification for the expense. While your budget may list something such as staff or personnel, the budget narrative provides an opportunity to be more detailed in describing and supporting these line items.

You will also use the budget narrative to justify the costs in each budget category. So, while the numbers and short descriptions are relatively static in the budget, in the narrative you will make your case for these expenditures.

Make Sure Your Grant Budget Aligns With Your Narrative

In addition to your budget, most funders will want to receive a grant proposal narrative explaining the purpose and goals of your program or project, how it will be executed, and your anticipated outcome.

To improve your chances of getting approved, make sure your grant budget is consistent with your grant narrative. You can do so by checking that anything in your narrative with a cost attached to it is reflected in the budget youve prepared.

For example:

• If yours is a year-long program, your narrative should clearly state that the program will run for one year, and your budget should reflect the expenses for that same year
• If your narrative states that your program provides English classes to new immigrants, make sure your budget includes any translator payroll expenses, dedicated program staff time, or rental costs for space to accommodate your constituents

With the many funding opportunities available to your organization, its worth taking the time to understand how to prepare a budget for a grant proposal. If you need help creating an accurate budget for your grant application, Enkel can help. Contact us to find out how we assist businesses and nonprofits organizations across Canada with their bookkeeping, financial reporting and budgeting.

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Understanding The Out Years

• We do not expect your budget to predict perfectly how you will spend your money five years down the road. However, we do expect a reasonable approximation of what you intend to spend. Be thorough enough to convince the reviewers that you have a good sense of the overall costs.
• In general, NIH does not have policy on salary escalation submitted in an application. We advise applicants to request in the application the actual costs needed for the budget period and to request cost escalations only if the escalation is consistent with institutional policy. See and .
• Any large year-to-year variation should be described in your budget justification. For example, if you have money set aside for consultants only in the final year of your budget, be sure to explain why in your justification .
• In general, NIH recipients are allowed a certain degree of latitude to rebudget within and between budget categories to meet unanticipated needs and to make other types of post-award changes. Some changes may be made at the recipient’s discretion as long as they are within the limits established by NIH. In other cases, NIH prior written approval may be required before a recipient makes certain budget modifications or undertakes particular activities . See NIH Grants Policy Statement – Changes in Project and Budget.

Work With Your Teammates To Determine Costs

Creating the budget justification for grants requires working with the team members wholl be running your program or project to figure out their anticipated needs and the associated costs.

Note that the costs for running your program are considered direct costs, while any overhead expenses that support your organizations infrastructure are indirect costs. Make sure you use real numbers that accurately reflect these costs as you determine what to include in your grant budget.

Here are some items to consider:

• Payroll expenses: Include details about how much time your program or research staff members will be required to spend on your project
• Material expenses: Provide a breakdown of the types and amounts of supplies that youll need
• Travel costs: Include information like the number of trips planned and the number of days and people for each trip
• Event costs: These may include the cost of renting a space for your event or hiring audio and visual equipment providers
• Catering expenses: If your event or program will be catered, provide details like the number of people attending and the cost per head
• Gift expenses: While often overlooked, fringe benefits like volunteer thank you gifts and honoraria for speakers should also be included

Here’s an example of what you can include in a budget for your grant proposal:

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Free Grant Proposal Templates

With grant proposals, individuals and organizations can solicit funds from foundations, government entities, corporations, and other sources for projects such as scientific research, humanitarian programs, academic study, social services, and professional development. Since grant funding can be a critical component for financing an organization or allowing research to progress, crafting an effective grant proposal is key. Whether youre creating a lengthy proposal for a government agency, using a letter format for a private foundation, or entering info into an online application, a grant proposal helps potential funders understand the importance of your project and what you plan to achieve.

To help guide you through this process, a number of grant writing templates are available below, including proposal, application, and budget forms. These free, printable templates can provide structure, offer a professional presentation, and save you time and money. Youll find templates in Microsoft Excel, Word, and PDF formats, all of which you can customize to suit your organization and project.

Sample Project Proposal Budget Template

Microsoft Excel |

Use this project proposal budget template to guide project sponsors and other stakeholders through the financial details of your project. The template includes sample project proposal budget data with task-by-task budget specifics, which you can use to compare your projects proposed budget figures against actual budgeting, to arrive at a precise under/over balance. This pre-populated budget proposal template includes item-by-item proposed costs and balance tallies to ensure you plan an adequate, project-specific budget proposal.

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Align The Grant Budget And The Budget Narrative

Most grants require individuals, groups, or organizations to complete budgets using a spreadsheet along with a narrative to explain the items in the budget. Make sure that these two match up. The budget categories must reflect in the budget spreadsheet and budget narrative. Make sure that all budget items have detailed descriptions and justifications in the narrative for the expenses. Most funding bodies are critical in checking if these two documents line up, and the failure to do so results in the nonapproval of a grant. Aligning the budget and the narrative show that you have a conceptual understanding and clarity of the project itself.

What Is A Grant Narrative

Grant narratives for a budget are supplementary documents to the grant budget proposal that provides space for the individual or organization asking for the grant to explain the process of computing the grant proposal, especially the budget and expenses that expands the description of each item of the budget line, sharing additional funding sources for the planned project. While the grant budget paints the grant funding in numbers, the narrative extends on the given information, providing context and meaning. The budget narrative starts with each component or category of the grant budget, providing additional explanation and justification for incurred items. The grant budget lists expenses as personnel or materials the narrative provides an opportunity to indicate more detail in describing and supporting these items. Budget narratives also justify costs in each expense category, providing clear explanations of their necessity to the success of a project or program. The section below explains what a narrative looks like for each category.

PersonnelFringe benefitsTravelEquipmentSuppliesConstructionConsultants or contractsOther costsIndirect costs

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Put It In A Spreadsheet

Take note from where every one of the predictions originated. If you write the reason for the proposal, that will be useful later. A spreadsheet is the right tool for the job when youre dealing with budgets so make sure that you know how to use it. Learn enough to build a simple budget youll get through most of it by adding things and combining them. If your budget does not add up correctly as youve built it up as a table in Word, two things are going to happen. Firstly, youre going to look stupid. Secondly, people will lose faith in all of your other statistics.

How To Write A Grant Budget Proposal

Preparing the budget for a grant proposal is one of the most critical aspects of the grant writing process. The budget tells the funding institution the estimated amount that the requesting body needs to complete a project. In all aspects of business, budget plans are essential for implementing different programs and ensuring that it becomes successful. The section below details the different steps you can follow to write a comprehensive grant budget proposal.

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Best Grant Proposal Budget Template To Win Grants

People creating a grant proposal often mistake the grant proposal budget for the organization’s operating budget.

The operation budget details the expected income and expenses for the upcoming year, including direct and indirect costs. Grant budget ties to the funding project’s cost and the exact time the grant covers.

Since the goal of a grant budget is to accurately outline the project’s benefits, research, and cost, people usually use a budget template to provide the relevant information in a readable format.

The advantage of providing a grant budget is that it usually increases the chances of getting your request approved. Additionally, it’s easier to run your project or business since everything is already detailed.

Finally, by doing a budget report, you’re half done doing an accurate grant report you’ll have to send the funder anyways. To make the job easier, here’s a budget template you can follow when creating a grant budget.

How Should You Prepare A Grant Proposal Budget: 5 Steps To Follow

Preparing a grant proposal budget will be one of the more important pieces of your grant writing process. The budget is where the true ask is formed: how much money do you need to complete the project? Given that the budget is so critical, we have compiled five steps to follow to complete this portion of your grant proposal.

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Applying For Grants: Creating A Realistic Budget

Many organizations require a project budget as part of their grant applications, but creating one is easier said than done. We know that accounting for the unknown can be a daunting task, but there are ways to structure and plan a budget that make it less about guesswork and more about smart planning. Weve compiled some advice to help you create a realistic budget for grants or your own personal use.

A budget has a number of uses beyond understanding how much it will cost to produce a project. Well discuss how to calculate your artist fee how to represent in-kind donations, income, equipment, and other factors what to do about self-financed projects and how to account for studio space that is also your living space. Finally, we offer some sample budgets for different project disciplines.

How Can Budgets Help?The budget isnt only a way to give an idea of how much a project costs, it also allows granting foundations to see how realistic you are about what the project entails. Artists can use itemized budgets as a management tool to set milestones throughout the life of a project. For example, a successful budget can function as a launching pad for fundraisingit gives you goals to work toward. Budgets can be used as a flexible document to use as check-ins and to update as the scope and timeline of a project changes.

Artists fee for six months: 50% of $35,000 = $17,500

In-Kind DonationsThere are two important things to remember about in-kind goods and services:

Budget Increase Proposal Template

To learn more about business budget templates, see our collection of free business budget templates for any company. For more annual business budget templates, please refer to this article. We also offer a great variety of business templates for small businesses, startups, nonprofit organizations, as well as operating budget templates, that can be used across all industries.

What Are The Types Of Budgeting Schemes

It is known that there are four standard budgeting schemes. And they consist of the following:

• Incremental budgeting this form of budgeting tackles a previous years actual figures while you add or subtract a percentage to answer the acquired budget of the current year. Also, this is the simplest and most common form of budgeting scheme.
• Activity-based budgeting the next example focuses on getting the number of inputs necessary to provide the outputs and targets implemented by an organization. A common example is when a business should start recognizing the necessary tasks to take first that will meet the sales target until the costs for each activity to do will be determined.
• Value proposition budgeting another budgeting scheme answers the reason for inputting the amount you estimated in a budget, how a value outweighs the expenses, or even why the budget should be justified. And as much as possible, do not include irrelevant expenditures in this section.
• Zero-based budgeting lastly, this budgeting plan assumes that every department in a budget is zero and should be rebuilt from the very beginning. But, the expenses should be justified. And this strategy is helpful when you need costs quickly, particularly if a business undergoes an economic downturn.