A Quick Guide to Setting a Nonprofit Communications Budget

Nonprofit organizations continually grapple with maintaining and improving their operations, especially in today’s volatile economy and a rapidly changing world. They must constantly strive for sustainability, and an essential part of that quest is proper budgeting. Unfortunately, it often excludes people outside an organization’s finance team. Similarly, the budget is often too focused on the present knowns without regard for the unknowns or the future. On average, 42% of nonprofit companies spend between $500 and $5,000 a month on marketing. However, a vast majority of nonprofits are undecided about how much they want to spend in 2025.

Establish Budget Review Processes

Regularly reviewing your budget helps your organization detect and address issues early on, make well-informed financial decisions, and build trust with stakeholders by reporting on your findings. You’ve got the budgeting basics down, but how do you ensure your budget is ultimately effective? It can be tricky to accurately predict how much you’ll raise from each source and categorize these funds appropriately.

Board discussions about fundraising

Both the Internet and new regulations in some states are making nonprofit boards more aware than ever about executive compensation. On the web at , all the Forms 990 for US nonprofits (with annual revenues of $25,000 or more) are posted and each shows the salaries for “key employees” who are paid $50,000 per year or more. In other words—by going to this website anyone can find out The Key Benefits of Accounting Services for Nonprofit Organizations the salary of the top staff in nearly any nonprofit.

Additional Resources

97 percent of nonprofits have budgets of less than $5 million annually, 92 percent operate with less than $1 million a year, and 88 percent spend less than $500,000 annually for their work. From a sample nonprofit budget template to comprehensive nonprofit annual budget templates, it covers all the essentials to keep your budget on track. Grant-makers have the potential to contribute large sums to nonprofits and board directors should ensure that they meet the grantor’s requirements to qualify. Donors expect to know how their donations are helping the organization so boards need to consider how they can communicate this information to donors. It typically requires getting income from multiple sources for nonprofits to thrive.

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One of the major expenses includes program-specific costs, which can differ significantly depending on project size and geographic location. For example, a small community health outreach program might incur variable costs ranging from $5,000 to $20,000, while larger initiatives can require budgets upward of $50,000 to cover expanded services. Fixed operating costs are the backbone of any charity nonprofit, ensuring that essential activities continue seamlessly. For Harmony Hearts Initiative, a successful charity nonprofit, managing these costs is crucial to achieving its mission and maintaining nonprofit financial transparency. Launching a charity nonprofit like Harmony Hearts Initiative involves several key operating expenses that lay the foundation for sustainable impact.

• Despite the press about excessive compensation, nonprofit boards are more frequently worried that they are paying their executives too little.
• When creating a budget for non-profit organizations, understanding these core elements is essential.
• However, they can also be more costly and have limited reach compared to digital strategies.
• For example, some watchdogs believe nonprofits should spend no more than 35% of their donations on overhead.
• Directors and officers of the nonprofit cannot be paid, but people who hold a position within the company can be.
• You’ll hear all kinds of different answers to this question, but in general, nonprofits want to keep their administrative/overhead costs below 20%.
• Understanding your nonprofit target audience and how they prefer to communicate, as well as where they spend their time online and offline, is an important part of your marketing strategy.

Nonprofit Budgeting – A Practical Guide for Nonprofits (+12 Best Practices)

Identify opportunities, threats, and emerging trends likely to influence your activities (both internal and external to your organization). Finally, get clear on and name the goals, organizational values, and priorities that you want to have reflected in this year’s budget. The needs of a food bank are different from a community & economic development organization and from a performing arts nonprofit. Donors and grantmakers want to know that their money is going to an organization that is financially healthy and stable. Fund your mission and transform your impact by reading The Ultimate Guide to Nonprofit Fundraising.

Good budgets assure donors that the nonprofit is actively overseeing the budget process. Google Ad Grants provide eligible nonprofits a $10,000 monthly stipend to spend on paid search ads, helping supplement their marketing budgets. While regular Google Ad accounts have to pay per ad click, Google Grant participants can display their advertisements for free.