02 Aug 9 Best Free️ Google Sheets Nonprofit Budget Templates for 2023

Your expenses will include the costs of running your nonprofit organization; such as salaries, rent, office supplies, and marketing. To estimate your expenses, review your organization’s financial history and base your estimates on that. If you don’t have a financial history to review, tally up the expenses you expect to incur. This nonprofit startup operating budget template features sections for total one-time startup expenses, monthly expenses, and total funds required to operate. Use this operating budget template to ensure that your nonprofit has accounted for every single cost and expense. By doing so, you can Everything You Should Know about Accounting Services for Nonprofit Organizations keep an eye on your big-picture forecast with the assurance that every detail of your accounting is in order.

FREE 10+ Research Grant Budget Templates in PDF MS Word

These two cost centers are important components of understanding true costs and are created in parallel with the programs. By organizing your budget and allocations this way, you’re also setting up the accounting system to track and report the three functional expense categories required on audits and the IRS Form 990. A nonprofit budget is a document that helps nonprofit organizations in predicting their expenditure. These documents will be the very basis in making the financial predictions for a certain nonprofit undertaking. She then elaborated that through the document, nonprofit organizations can set limits on their spending following the availability of financial resources.

• The first step in effective budget preparation is to bring together experts from different departments, to create a collaborative approach that encourages open communication and shared responsibility.
• Nonprofit organizations need physical space to conduct their work, including office space and employee parking.
• 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.
• Write down every possible expense you can think of, and then ask around to see what you’ve missed.
• Too many nonprofits operate with an attitude of scarcity because they assume that’s what their donors (including funders) want.
• The capital budget can also be used for construction and other big, one-time spending projects that often take more than a fiscal year to pay for.

Survey: US Nonprofits at Critical Point as Funding for Community Needs Falters

You’re no longer running around like a headless chicken, not knowing whether you’re in the green or in the red. Here are some other reasons why you need an annual budget for your nonprofit organization. While not specifically a budget, a cash flow projection can help keep your nonprofit on track financially. However, a small nonprofit may only have one program, and that’s the one exception when no program budget is needed. Simply include the program’s expenses in the overall operating budget.

Helps Inform Your Decisions

The basic purpose of budgeting is to control and manage the organization’s financial resources. A profit organization’s main objective is to earn profit, whereas nonprofit organization’s primary purpose is to help the needy people by collecting donations and grants. Are you looking to expand a program, hire additional staff, or purchase new technology? Here’s a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to building a budget that supports your nonprofit’s mission effectively. The supplies category is a kind of catch-all for general costs that don’t fit into the categories above. This might include things like office supplies, or equipment for programs that you run.

Nonprofit Budget Examples to Download

Presenting a nonprofit budget to the board shouldn’t be considered a routine task. While the expenses from the previous and forthcoming year should be factual, storytelling and creativity are still essential aspects of the information. Your secondary goals include creating a budget presentation that shares your organization’s financial story through numbers and results. This information will help board members make decisions that are connected to the organization’s mission and specific goals.

Presenting the budget and future financial projections can lead the board toward understanding the organization’s priorities and the challenges it might face. This section of your presentation should include short-term as well as long-term financial planning, by connecting financial distribution to specific program goals. Highlight potential risks, but outline contingency plans to show that the budget has been well-informed, and can actively contribute to strategic decision-making.

💸 Leverage money management tools to stay on budget

The process of building a nonprofit operating budget is fundamentally a planning process. Once adopted, the operating budget also becomes an essential financial management tool helpful in monitoring ongoing operations and organizational activities throughout the year. With each reporting period, the organization compares actual performance against its plan. Good budgeting for nonprofit organizations is critically important to success, as nonprofits typically have stretched resources, fluctuating funding, and/or heavy reliance on specific funding https://nyweekly.com/business/accounting-services-for-nonprofits-benefits-and-how-to-choose-the-right-provider/ sources.

• Presenting a nonprofit budget to the board shouldn’t be considered a routine task.
• Sometimes, it’s more beneficial to keep an eye on your revenue and expenses with a top-down approach to pinpoint major areas of concern.
• As we look towards 2025, nonprofits face a unique set of challenges and opportunities.
• While there is generally space for hope and dreams in the nonprofit world, when it comes to budgeting – there isn’t.
• The purpose of this nonprofit operating budget template is to give you a sense of what I think a board member might want to see to better understand the true story behind your organization’s finances.

Planner

• Communicating with other team members early in the process will allow them to set aside time to share their knowledge.
• Plus, you can use any funding you don’t spend to build your organization’s reserve funds, which contribute to long-term sustainability.
• The operating budget must be centered around the primary goals and objectives of the organization.
• These become part of the overall organizational budget and are used to evaluate the program’s financial effectiveness.
• Although profit and loss statements can offer valuable insights, cash flow statements provide a real-time understanding of the organization’s liquidity and ability to meet short-term obligations.
• Join 100,000+ amazing nonprofits, organizations, and fundraisers on BetterWorld.

I’m sure the foundation didn’t want to give us $5,000 when we had $50,000 sitting in the bank. Formula mistakes are easy to make (even in tools like Excel or Google Sheet), so double check the numbers manually to be sure you have an accurate bottom line on your budget. Make this part of your nonprofit’s culture so it happens systematically every year. Whatever you include for fundraising revenue needs to be backed up with a detailed fundraising plan.

A beginner’s guide to accounting for nonprofits

Take note that the amount of your financial resources must be the latest. If you don’t know what your goals are, your budget plan will fail to reflect them, and you might end up overspending on programs that don’t further the core purpose of your mission. The template includes a revenue summary section that calculates your total grant income and a net section to help you quickly determine your program’s financial sustainability. Every accounting system has a chart of accounts which classifies the sources of revenue and the types of expenses you incur. Use the same categories in your budget to easily generate financial reports to funders and others.