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Most Common Grant Proposal Errors (and How to Fix Them)

Grant Writing Made Easy

If allowed, include both direct and indirect costs. Pro Tip: Use a separate budget narrative page to explain your numbers. Ensure accuracy and completeness: Check all math, totals, and formatting. Tie each cost to a purpose: Funders should be able to see how each expense contributes to your goals.

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Developing a nonprofit budget: The basics and best practices

Candid

Among the free samples featured in this article are those for grant proposal budgets , which should include sources of income (e.g., staff time, supplies, and evaluation), and indirect costs (e.g., Some budgets include a budget narrative explaining why each budget item is needed and how it will be used.

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Grant Writing for Small Nonprofits: How to Do More With Less

Grant Writing Made Easy

Budget Justifications & Templates: Most grants require breaking down your numbers. Prepare clear, pre-formatted explanations for everyday expenses like staff time, supplies, and indirect costs. Evaluation & Outcomes Plans: Many funders want to know how you’ll measure success. Not everyone has time to read a full grant proposal.

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Grant Writer Cost in 2025: What You Actually Need to Pay [Expert Guide]

Allied Grant Writers

They create detailed financial plans and write convincing budget narratives to explain each cost. These experts help organizations build realistic budgets that match funders’ goals and show financial responsibility.

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Collaboration—Love it or Hate it?

Grant Professionals Association

When I’m trying to balance a Logic Model, Work Plan, twelve attachments, budget narrative, project abstract, and a thirty-page narrative, the last thing I need are twenty-minute debates about “how come they are getting more than we are?” Has this worked all the time? Absolutely not.

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Advocating for Real Costs and Organizational Expenses by Megan Campbell, MPA, GPC

Assel Grant Services

Even the federal government is considering increasing the de minimus indirect cost rate from 10% to 15% in 2024. Identify effective practices for developing realistic, accurate line-item and narrative budgets and for expressing the relationship between line items and project activities in the budget narrative 4.10.

GPC
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Grant Budget Best Practices: Make your project budget an asset for your application!

Grant Professionals Association

Budgets always change and formulas will allow you to make modifications much faster, facilitate collaboration, and ensure that all related costs and totals stay correct as you amend specific line items. Formulas also make it much easier to write your budget narrative as you have detailed calculations for all your line items.