What are some “best practices” for building an adequate, accurate campaign budget?
When creating a campaign budget, we first stress the importance of careful accounting for all true campaign expenses. Doing so will give your organization the best picture for your campaign’s return on investment and will also help you truthfully answer a question donors often raise.
Campaigns are very labor-intensive. As such, personnel costs are by far the item of greatest expense in a campaign—often more than half of total costs incurred.
Here are the general categories often used in preparing a campaign budget (reference: Indiana University Center on Philanthropy):
a. Personnel
- Development director
- CEO
- Consultant
- Support staff
b. Communications
- Brochures
- Videos
- Website
- Newsletters
c. Research
- Outside firm for grant research, prospect research
d. Special events
- Kick-off event
- Fundraising events
e. Printing
- Letterhead, envelopes
- Invitations
- Pledge cards
f. Donor stewardship, recognition
- Plaques
- Special events for major donors
g. Volunteer training and support
- Hospitality
- Recognition
- Training materials
h. Contingency
As a rule of thumb, the smaller the campaign goal the higher the percentage required for campaign expenditures. That’s because every campaign has both fixed and variable expenses, and the fixed costs—for example, new software that may be needed—are not affected by the dollars to be raised. Total campaign expenses may range from four to 15 percent of the goal.