An_Article_Review_of_How_to_Develop_a_Grant_Proposal_Budget

A budget in a grant proposal is the main element. For it to be effective it has to outline the proposed project in fiscal terms and it must also help the reviewers to determine how the project will be conducted. It should contain information about how the activities will be undertaken, the personnel who will be involved and how the project will be managed. The budget should be containing all the details of the costs, supplies, personnel and the activities required by the project. The project is only feasible when it is within the budget. In case the costs are omitted the project will not be deemed as feasible. Secondly the budget should be reasonable by being based on actual costs. The purpose of writing this essay is to review how various authors have written about developing a budget in a project proposal. The first article in my review was written by Mark Resnicoff. The reason why I picked this article is that it shows all the requirements of the budget and it is related to what I have learnt in the class. In this article mark outlines the format that should be followed in developing the budget in a project or a grant proposal. Mark says that a budget should contain a list of all items which should be well detailed. All figures which include the column totals should be checked accurately. One should not pad the budget because the reviewers might be aware of the current structure of the wages and the cost of goods and services. According to Mark, after writing the budget one should include a budget narrative which is used to explain on how the costs were estimated and providing justification for the expenses. The narratives are mostly in form of a text although in some cases tables can be used. Mark states that one should link the budget to the activities and objectives so as to help justify the listed expenses. The person writing the budget should also make sure that his budget fits within the donors range and should also list other sources of the projects income (Resnicoff, 2010). I agree to the facts that have been highlighted by mark and especially the point that a budget should contain its own narrative to explain it. The second article in my review is “Getting your grant proposal right by Heidi J. Kramer” the reason why I selected this article over many others is because Kramer has highlighted some of the relevant principles that a person should consider when developing a budget in a project proposals. The first principle is to make sure that the budget is printed on a new page. This will make the budget easily accessible because some of the reviewers would like to look at the budget before they look at anything else in the proposal. So by putting it in its own page you are making it easy for the reviewers to access it. The second principle is to make sure that all the figures are aligned well. The figures should be equally aligned. The third principle is to double or triple check the figures to remove all the errors and omissions that might be present in the budget. The final principle according to Kramer is to ensure that you include the column headings such as the requested funds, budget category, local contributions and the project total (Krammer, 2010). From this article every one would agree with Kramer that it is obvious to make sure that the budget is neat by printing it on a new page. It is also important to double check your work before sending it to the donors. This article concurs with what we have been learning in class. The final article in my review is “How to develop a proposal budget” by Dan Safford. The reason for choosing this article is because Safford has given out some guidelines for developing a budget which are practical and relevant to my course work He starts by saying that proposals are very costly. He says that it is very hard to determine how much money one should budget for. It will only depend on how important the project is to the organization. As a rule the costs of the proposals should be between 3% and 5% of the value of the contract. According to Safford the duration of writing a proposal varies widely. If the project is relatively small the budget can be developed by only one person but if the project is complex it may require more people to develop the budget and this calls for more time. Safford urges the budget developers to be realistic when coming up with their work (Safford, 2009). In this article I agree with Safford that one should come up with a complete and a realistic budget. I also agree to the fact that the budgets in grant proposals are not cheap and it only varies according to the organization. In conclusion all the articles that I have reviewed have pointed out the main places of concerns that one should consider when developing a budget for a grant proposal. The points include double checking the work, aligning your work well, printing the budget on a new page and making the budget is as real as possible among others. References Kramer H.J. (2010), “Getting the grant proposal right” Retrieved on July 21, 2010 from< http://nonprofit.about.com/od/foundationfundinggrants/a/grantbudget.htm >. Resnicoff M. (2010), “Project Budget – Writing Grant Proposals” Retrieved on July 21, 2010 from< http://technicalbusinesswriting.suite101.com/article.cfm/project-budget-- writing-grant-proposals >. Safford D. (2009), “How to develop a proposal budget” Retrieved on July 21, 2010 from< http://www.proposalworks.com/articles/budget.asp >.