6 Nonprofit Budget Templates for Your Organization

The next step is to forecast your organization’s revenue for the upcoming year. This can be challenging because, unlike for-profit businesses, nonprofits rely on a wide variety of funding sources. The primary purpose of nonprofit budgeting is to ensure that the organization can meet its goals without running out of money. It involves tracking where your funds are going and identifying areas where you may need to cut back or raise more money. Creating a budget for non-profit organizations requires balancing mission impact with financial sustainability.

Revenues and Support

The responsibility of creating your operating budget typically falls to your chief financial officer The Key Benefits of Accounting Services for Nonprofit Organizations (CFO) or nonprofit controller. These professionals focus on your financial strategy and can use specialized tools to forecast your nonprofit’s cash flows for more effective resource allocation. If you’ve created a budget for your household before, you probably averaged your expenses, calculated your income, and determined how much you could save for the future. Nonprofit budgeting follows a similar process, except you’re projecting revenue and expenses for your entire organization.

• Jitasa’s nonprofit budgeting guide defines this resource as ‘a planning document used to predict expenses and allocate resources for your organization.
• When you’ve got big marketing dreams, a financial breakdown will help you decide where you really want to allocate your resources.
• List program expenses (staff salary, insurance, supplies, fundraising fees, etc.) to see your total nonprofit program expenses vs. your actual revenue.
• Since we’re in the business of helping nonprofits, and creating the tools they need to do more good, we wanted to help by creating a sample nonprofit budget template that is free to download and use.

Which budgeting method should I use?

The opinions and views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect or imply the opinions or views of Blue Avocado, its publisher, or affiliated organizations. Blue Avocado, its publisher, and affiliated organizations are not liable for website visitors’ use of the content on Blue Avocado nor for visitors’ decisions about using the Blue Avocado website. In the long-term, these surpluses should accumulate until it’s time to make your next capital investment as part of expanding your work. Within the context of a budget, proactivity means incorporating a contingency line item.

Calculate your nonprofit’s expenses 📊

Like many businesses, nonprofit organizations often lack the resources and funding to do everything they want. As a result, they need to evaluate their budget and make cuts while continuing to grow. In order to be as effective as possible with your nonprofit budget, you need to be strategic about how you use your money. This example shows the estimated expenses and revenues of a nonprofit organization that runs community programs. The organization has planned to spend $102,500 on operations and projects (expenses) and expects to raise $135,500 through donations, fundraising events, and program fees (revenues).

Free operating budget template for nonprofits

• It’s better to be pleasantly surprised when that new donor does renew at the same level than to be unpleasantly surprised that only two of last year’s five new donors renewed at all.
• Capital and operating budgets both support the organization’s mission by planning and managing resources.
• With proper budget planning, nonprofits can easily reap the benefits of good budgeting.
• Be sure to include all the payments that have gone toward your mission programs—including international payments.

You may want to create both types of budgets to help your team stay on track and avoid overspending. For even more detailed planning, you can also create a capital budget (used for long-term https://nerdbot.com/2025/06/10/the-key-benefits-of-accounting-services-for-nonprofit-organizations/ projects) and various grant budgets (for defining how you’ll use funds if your grant proposal is accepted). When creating your nonprofit operating budget, use the past as a benchmark for your expectations and goals in the coming year. By analyzing your previous year’s budget, you can get a clear understanding of your organization’s financial needs and how they may have changed over time. This can help ground you in setting realistic goals for your expenses and fundraising efforts.

What tools should I use to create a nonprofit budget?

Administrative costs is typically another large category for nonprofit organizations. This includes all your office supplies, from printers, copiers, and computers to paper, pens, pencils, and other items used by your staff. If you have a remote work environment—or a hybrid environment—plan to reimburse your employees for supplies purchased out of pocket for their home office. An annual operating budget is a critical financial document that outlines how your organization expects to spend your money—and where it will come from in the first place.

These are financial means that are given to organizations with a mission and the success rate worthy of investment. The last method is through the organization’s independent efforts, as their strategic fundraising plans. Through the activities set in the plan, proceeds are acquired, whether through ticket sales, item auctions, or others.