Planning the Budget or Budgeting the Plan

When developing a budget for a project or an organization, the exercise involves going back and forth from your activities to your budget and from your budget to your activities. This process will continue till you have refined it and gained confidence in the entire proposal.

When conceiving a project, you also decide upon what kind of activities have to be implemented. Or if you are planning the budget for your NGO, you need to list out activities that will be carried out for the coming year.

Have an intense discussion with your team about the costs involved in implementing various project activities. What kind of manpower and material support is required for these activities?

Take some flipcharts and on each of it, write down a project activity. Discuss with your team for the inputs required in delivering this activities.

Estimate the realistic costs for these inputs. Whether it is to cover expenses of the staff persons involved in the project activity or buying some material or paying for travel, all these can be written down on the flip chart for each activity.

In an Excel sheet, you can then start mentioning these activities and the proposed costs and calculate the total expenses.

The Finance Officer can advise on the inflation costs, current prices and any other overheads you are missing.

The Organizational head may include other administrative expenses, if required, salaries and any new purchases.