LIS 450RRL: GRANTWRITING AND FUNDRAISING BUDGET REQUEST AND JUSTIFICATION (for 1 credit students with note for 1/2 credit students) Summer 2001

Assignment Due: July 25.

Preparation. Please read Chapter 12, "Budgets," in Miner et al. Note that here and in other sources from your reading list and elsewhere are a number of budget examples that will no doubt be helpful to you.

Overview. You are asked to submit two items for this assignment: a budget in table form and a narrative entitled "Budget Notes for the name of project. The narrative should include a note -- possibly in numbered format corresponding to numbers in the budget explaining and justifying items in the budget. Note: some of the elements will be very short, e.g., if the item were Office Supplies for $300, your note might say "standard estimate." Other items may require more explanation. If you show the % of salary in the table form of the budget, your budget note may simply be "current salary" or "standard rate for first level librarian." Post your responses to the Budget Information bulletin board.

Note for those taking the course for 1/2 credit. As has been the case with most of the other assignments, the information in this assignment should prove helpful to you when you address this section in your letter proposal. I suggest you append a line item budget to your letter proposal with at least a line or two of explanation for things that aren't self-evident.

Background/Philosophy Miner and collegues say that the budget "is an alternative way of expressing your project." It should be possible to look at a proposal budget without reading the text and still have a good sense of what the project is about, what its objectives are, how it will be carried out, how it will be evaluated and how and who will be told about the results. Keep this picture in mind as you prepare your budget.

Details. You are asked to prepare a generic budget for your proposal (to the Daniel Foundation). For a real proposal, you would follow the specific guidelines of the funding agency is preparing it. Most funding agencies have quite detailed requirements about how they want you to present the budget -- even when they are rather laissez-faire about the rest of the proposal. Many of these guidelines and forms are available on the net -- check out some of the government sources or look at the SRA web site under forms or the Common Grant Application Formats found at the Foundation Center site. These common application forms are used by groups of foundations.

You will find it helpful to refer to the resource list you developed as part of your workplan assignment and the evaluation and dissemination costs that you looked at earlier. The budget should include costs for the work, for the measurement and evaluation, and for letting folks know what the results will be. Below is another example of a list of commonly used budget categories. Pick and choose to put together the best list for your project. A list like this can be helpful to be sure you haven't left out something important.

1. Personnel
   1. Salaries and wages
   2. Fringe benefits
   3. Consultants/Honoraria

2. Space and facilities
   1. Rental/purchase/renovation
   2. Utilities and maintenance costs

3. Equipment (specifications and justification required)
   1. Purchase or Rental
   2. Contract costs (computer time, online searching, communication)
   3. Software
   4. Maintenance contract

4. Travel (project staff and/or consultants)
   1. Transportation (or mileage)
   2. Per Diem

5. Materials
   1. Office supplies
   2. Special materials

6. Communication
   1. Postage
   2. Telephone/ Fax
   3. Printing and duplicating
   4. Artwork/graphics

7. Other

Some Miscellaneous Notes.

• Make sure you include expenses for implementation (your work plan), evaluation, and dissemination.

• If any of the items on your budget require calculations, show how you derived the figures. Ex. Travel (100 miles per month @.31/mile x 12 months = $372).

• Figure an average of $300 per year per key project staff member for supplies. Use a proportional amount if the staff person is not full time or not full time for a full year.

• If it is difficult to get the true fringe benefit rate from your institution, use an estimated 25%. It will be close.

• If you have a multi-year budget, show each year's expenses as a column with a total column for all the years -- column titles might be Year 1, Year 2 and Total. Allow a 5% salary increase for the second (and subsequent years) and 3-5% increase for other budget items. An alternative way is to use a single sheet for each year's budget, e.g., one for the Year 1 budget, one for the Year 2 budget, etc. and a total budget sheet which is usually placed on top.

• Remember to include, if applicable, budget support for service and maintenance constracts (about 10% of total cost of equipment), insurance, installation of equipment, legal services, training costs, and the like. Try to think through all contingencies and make reasonable estimates.

• Some funders require cost-sharing, that is, you and the funder co-pay for the project. If you think this will be the case for you, then set up your budget in three columns -- total expenses, cost sharing (the part you agree to support) and funds requested (the amount requested from the funder). Frequently, staff time, telephone, office supplies, use of space are cost shared.

• Some funders (the government is one) allow you to specify indirect costs and request additional money for these overhead items. Usually if the funder allows these costs, your institution will require that you include this line item (certainly true of universities). Each institution sets its own overhead rate (another term for indirect costs). This rate supposedly pays for costs that are difficult to separate out individually, such as heat, lighting and airconditioning, building maintenance, administrative support services. There are rules regarding overhead costs. Usually the funding agency sets a ceiling on the amount allowable and prohibits the rate from being charged against equipment purchases. For the purposes of this exercise, assume a 45% overhead rate (indirect costs) and calculate it on all costs except equipment purchases and consultant fees. Add it to the total. This will be the amount requested from the funding agency.

• If your project is for seed money with the expectation that after the project is started that ongoing costs will be less and that continuation money can be supplied elsewhere. If this is the case for your project, please add a financing plan for future funding paragraph following the budget justification. Your plan may be as simple as a statement that your organization agrees to pick up ongoing costs if the project demonstrates success in its first year. Or it can include a combination of user fees, sales of publications, (look at our National Parks for an example of this kind of cost recovery), and/or plans to approach other granting agencies.
• Number the budget category items, as shown above. Submit your budget as a table similar to that you used for the time and task chart.

Notes to the Budget Submit a justification sheet (sometimes called budget narrative or notes to the budget) with an explanation, if needed, for any item that is not self-explanatory.

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