Wednesday night I went to a RI foundation meeting discussion budgets. Which I learned a lot from.
Some of the big take aways were...
- a budget (Income statement) should be set annually so that you have a goal for the year. You shouldn't change it as the year goes by or you'll never know how you did. But you should look at it (balance sheet) at least quarterly to make sure you are staying close enough to the bottom line....that the budget is working....
- Be realistic... this isn't the time to be a superstar and under goal yourself. If anything you should exaggerate your expected costs then if you come in under, good for you. Its always better to come in under than to go way over...
- look at your incomes separately from your expenses, then merge the two statements
- Make sure you are getting credit for your inkind/ private support/ donations in your budget...
Things to google later...
* Receipt bank- an app for your phone
* non-profit activities
* Lady Project
* Fiddle and Folk Festival
* RISCA
Inkind...
Inkind is all of the stuff that is donated to you including, space, volunteer hours, goods and cash money. This made me realize that i should keep track of everything as I go rather than try to remember everything.... because I have an awful memory.
So.... i took 2 lessons learned from RI foundation and blended them into a easy to use packet. The last workshop at RI foundation was about assessing impact. In that, we created a logic model. Basically, a business model for a nonprofit. This is the verbiage behind the numbers. And the budget holds some of the metrics behind the logic model.
This is what the original grid from the logic model looked like...
Some of the big take aways were...
- a budget (Income statement) should be set annually so that you have a goal for the year. You shouldn't change it as the year goes by or you'll never know how you did. But you should look at it (balance sheet) at least quarterly to make sure you are staying close enough to the bottom line....that the budget is working....
- Be realistic... this isn't the time to be a superstar and under goal yourself. If anything you should exaggerate your expected costs then if you come in under, good for you. Its always better to come in under than to go way over...
- look at your incomes separately from your expenses, then merge the two statements
- Make sure you are getting credit for your inkind/ private support/ donations in your budget...
Things to google later...
* Receipt bank- an app for your phone
* non-profit activities
* Lady Project
* Fiddle and Folk Festival
* RISCA
Inkind...
Inkind is all of the stuff that is donated to you including, space, volunteer hours, goods and cash money. This made me realize that i should keep track of everything as I go rather than try to remember everything.... because I have an awful memory.
So.... i took 2 lessons learned from RI foundation and blended them into a easy to use packet. The last workshop at RI foundation was about assessing impact. In that, we created a logic model. Basically, a business model for a nonprofit. This is the verbiage behind the numbers. And the budget holds some of the metrics behind the logic model.
This is what the original grid from the logic model looked like...
Then this is what it looks like after we filled it in, in the workshop....
Your main objective for your nonprofit is your Impact. This is your big picture/ 5 year goal. This is build around an awareness event. The activities are what you are going to do during your event. Resources and inputs are what you are using and who is helping your to have a successful event. The outputs are what physical/ nominal things you achieved from your event. The outcomes are what you do with your outputs. Which all brings you back to the impact. Boom!
It kinda hurts my brain to think about things that way. So i made it a worksheet to use for every event that looks like this....
You can see ive been filling it out as I've been working along. But it also helps me make sure i have everything covered.
The next thing i learned from the assessing effectiveness workshop was data collection. Very similar with what i did... so im just going to show you bang bang through pics...
First..
Then...
My worksheet...
Boom!!!!... Sheet 2 of my packet
Finally... budgets, budgets, budgets.....and the whole reason i started this particular blog entry.... inkind
Because these are my first couple of events im kinda working backwards. Im supposed to know exactly how much its going to cost to throw an event and exactly the best methods for everything. But... i only know basically what the deal is. So i found this basic budget sheet on excel when i searched "event budget"....
But i figure its a good start. You can see Ive been scribbling all over it and tweaking it to fit our needs. The thing i forgot to add, which is a big deal is the inkind. Grantees want to see how much things really cost and you want to know what it will cost you next time. And also, what if someone is having a bad day and not feeling so nice as to help you out next time. Thats the big thing i need to add into my budget.... foe example how much would the space cost if they weren't donating it, whats the full cost of the bad and how much would it cost me to buy the raffle prizes...
With this packet all of my data is collected and i can use it to submit budgets for grants....
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-tai
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