Nonprofit Budgeting 1 – Resources List
Nonprofit Budgeting in Leadership Mode: Optimizing the Moment
Video:
Accompanying Slides: Download here.
Transcript: Coming soon!
Articles
An Executive Director’s Guide to Nonprofit Leadership
Written by Kate Barr and Jeanne Bell for the Fall/Winter 2011 edition of the Nonprofit Quarterly, this article offers up what they see as the eight key business principles that guide financial leadership practice.
Organizational Slack (or Goldilocks and the Three Budgets)
This classic article from the Nonprofit Quarterly’s spring 2007 edition comes as many nonprofits are building their budgets for the coming year. Woods Bowman, the author, was one of the first to discuss the concept of what is now known as “full costs,” within which this concept of financial slack fits “just right.”
Beyond Financial Oversight: Expanding the Board’s Role in the Pursuit of Sustainability
Written by Jeanne Bell for the spring 2011 edition of the Nonprofit Quarterly, this article stresses that sustainability and engagement with the work is essential for nonprofit boards as they approach the future.
Creating High-Functioning Nonprofits: Who Should Have What Financial Information?
This workshop from 2016, featuring Hilda Polanco and moderated by Ruth McCambridge, mixes financial management with organizational development concepts.
Nonprofit Full Costs Realized: How 2 Nonprofits Transformed their Budgets
This 2016 workshop from Claire Knowlton offers lessons on building a common embrace of the “full costs framework” within your nonprofit, as well as how to speak to funders about the need for full cost coverage.
Truth or Consequences: The Implications of Financial Decisions
Does a diversified revenue base make for a more profitable—and therefore sustainable—nonprofit? Does government funding create big financial problems? Does owning a facility improve an organization’s financial health?
Steve Zimmerman, writing for Spectrum Nonprofit Services, reconsiders the budgeting process as an “opportunity to leverage the collective intelligence and experience of board and staff.”
Kate Barr from Propel Nonprofits adapts the budgeting process for nonprofits in the process of transformation — which, in our uncertain times — is really all of them.
Tools & Tips
StrongNonprofits Budgeting Toolkit
A budget is your organization’s strategy expressed in dollars. A strategic and collaborative budget process is essential to ensure that resources are being used most effectively to meet your mission and that your organization remains sustainable and accountable to its stakeholders. The tools and guidance on this page can help get you started.
Budgeting: A 10-Step Checklist
This 10-step budgeting checklist from Propel Nonprofits helps guide the budgeting process, which typically should begin at least three months before the end of the fiscal year to ensure that the budget is approved by the board of directors before the start of the new year.
As part of the series “Making Your Budget the Backbone of Your Nonprofit,” the Nonprofit Finance Fund reviews several approaches with the goal of preparing a budget that can function both as a high-level discussion tool and a detailed map for the organization.
Continuing the “Making Your Budget the Backbone of Your Nonprofit” series, the Nonprofit Finance Fund reviews what to do when you receive contributed revenue with donor restrictions — a donor-imposed time frame or purpose for how the grant or donation should be spent.
Also part of the series “Making Your Budget the Backbone of Your Nonprofit,” the Nonprofit Finance Fund discusses “below-the-line budgeting,” a tool nonprofit leaders can use to address the full cost of operating their organizations. More specifically, leaders can use below-the-line budgeting to segregate non-operating revenue and expense for better communication and planning, address balance-sheet needs, and communicate how surpluses would be used intentionally to invest back into the organization.
NFF Nonprofit Budgeting Scenario Planning Tool
This budgeting scenario tool from the Nonprofit Finance Fund can help your organization consider up to two scenarios beyond your current budget.
