Toolkit #5

Nonprofit budgets are rarely regarded as more than a necessary evil, primarily for providing a financial road map for staff, board and volunteers. As a result, the budgets often use formats with traditional income and expense categories. Little effort is made to make the budgets anything more than a ho-hum, boring list of numbers. But what if there was a way to have the budget tell a compelling story - one that conveys the vision and mission of your nonprofit and which gets the reader excited about your program outcomes? The results might cause your stakeholders to donate more of their time and money. But how do you do that? Can you move from a boring, traditional budget format to one that tells a story and wakes up your supporters? And, what do you do with this new style of budget. How do you use it and market it?This toolkit is a guide to all things related to budgeting, from why and how to develop budgets, and concluding with strategies to motive you to completely re-think how budgets can be marketed to your advantage. It is pat time to re-think everything you know about budgets and your process of developing them. Wake up your budget!