How to plan a budget: A Checklist
Use the following checklist when you create budget forms for your solicitation. Refer to it again later as you review the budgets submitted by applicants.
Essential
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The budget for the CCI Project, and for each site, should allocate funds to support…
- a full-time, highly skilled, well-connected project director (Less experienced staff cost the project less but may not have standing or backing to convene executives of public and private agencies in the community.) Learn more
- technical assistance (Set aside a minimum of 10% of the total budget — more depending on the scope of the project.) Learn more
- evaluation (Again, set aside a minimum of 10% — more depending on the scope of the project.) Learn more
- travel by site representatives to cross-site meetings and other locations for mentoring, information gathering, and training
- information technology for data collection (including cross-site data), data management, and information-sharing (Funds might be used to assess, seed, or expand the IT system. Amounts should be reasonable.)
- the participation of community members through, for example…
- reimbursement for transportation and/or child care
- stipends (to show that their time is valued)
- food and drink for meetings
- mini-grants to neighborhood organizations to help them defray the costs of staff to participate in the CCI.
- a meeting that brings together all project participants for visioning and strategic-planning, including the cost of facilitators. (Repeat at least once a year.)
And, be sure to…
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carefully review applicants' budgets to make certain that funds will be used to support activities that could conceivably lead to the development of collaboration or systems-change work. (Funds should not be "passed-through" to collaboration partners, for example, by sub-granting most of the funds to other agencies for client services.) Learn more
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Optional
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If possible, budget for funds to support:
- individuals to serve as liaisons to other agencies (Fund the time of staff to meet with other agencies.)
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cross-agency shadowing
- public-education and public-information programs (along with the resources to support these programs, such as websites, brochures, and publications)
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small-scale introduction of new, evidenced-based programming
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development and testing of unified, cross-agency tools for intake, assessment, and screening
- further training and technical assistance to promote collaboration.
You might also want to…
- use a "bell curve" funding strategy (Dedicate a smaller amount at the beginning to support planning and start-up, and a smaller amount at the end to promote sustainability and encourage grantees to find other sources of funding.) Learn more
- build-in a match requirement (Although public/private partnerships are not required by the federal government, you could offer this as an option for encouraging grantees to diversify their funding - thus bolstering their chances for sustainability.)
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