13 March 2025
Understanding your budget
Clear budgets help the assessors understand what you will be spending money on. Take time to make sure your budget is accurate and matches the proposal that you have outlined in your grant application.
Income
‘Income’ describes all the funds and resources that will be required to support your proposed project.
Make sure you list the requested amount of the North East Community Fund on the income column of your budget.
Depending on your project, you might list other sources of income including funds from:
- Sponsorship
- Fundraising
- Tickets and attendee or participant contributions
- Organisational cash contributions Other grants such as government, council or philanthropic
- When you are listing income, please note if that money is either confirmed (ie. you already have it) or if it is still to be confirmed (you are still in the process of securing or raising it).
Expenditure
Expenditure describes all costs related to the delivery of the project. When calculating your expenses, make sure to budget for any goods or services you need to deliver your project. Include details in the budget line and provide a quote with your application, to help us understand how you budgeted that amount.
Examples of common expenses include:
Equipment and supplies
Do you need to buy or hire any equipment for this event or initiative? Equipment could include things like a projector or portable stage, freezer, bats or coffee machine. What supplies do you need? Supplies could include pens and paper for a workshops or printing for an event program.
Advertising
Make sure you break-down any advertising costs. For example newspaper ads, flyers, social media, banners, design work for flyers/ posters.
Construction costs
Include what will be provided? For example upgrade to flooring, seating, playground, construction of ramp/handrails, supply and installation acoustic panel or signage.
Contractor/facilitator
How many hours/ sessions will contractors be providing? What will the contractor provide? How much do the contractors cost per hour?
Venue hire
One-off venue or park hire can be included.
Note: bond for venue is not eligible.
Fit out expenses
Fit out of table, chair or cabinets, audio system, heating and cooling.
Fees and permits
Council or land owner fees can be included. For example, building or planning or permit, skip hire, architect or engineer fees.
Other expenses
Waste removal, security expenses, road closure etc.
Don’t forget about expense items that you do not directly purchase but are still required to successfully complete the grant. Examples include:
Administrative costs
What is the cost to your organisation to administer the grant funding? For example, project management, volunteers.
Note: this should be no more than 10% of your total grant budget.
Project evaluation
We want to know about the success of your project. State how you will measure this and how much time it will take to do this.
Note: evaluation should be no more than 10% of your total grant budget.
Documentation
Photography of the project – we love photos, so take lots and include them!
In-kind contribution
An in-kind contribution describes the value of goods, services or support that is being donated to the project free of charge. Some common examples of in-kind support include:
- Free venue or equipment hire
- Donated materials or goods (e.g kitchen equipment)
- Unpaid staff or volunteer time (e.g. painting work, installing furniture or coordinating event)
- Donated service (e.g free advertising or marketing support or professional advice from an architect)
- According to Volunteering Australia, volunteer general labour should be calculated at $30 per hour and $45 per hour for a specialist labour such as engineer or architect.
Co-contribution
A Co-Contribution (also known as Co-Funding) is the amount that will be contributed by someone other than the funding provider you are applying to. For example, a project may require $50,000 in total, and you are applying for $35,000 from the funding provider, but the balance of $15,000 is covered by another source (e.g. organisation cash or other funding or support).
Co-contributions can be things like organisation cash, fundraising, donations, or other State, Federal, Local council or philanthropic grants.
Balancing your budget
Your income and your expenditure should be the same amount ie. Income $ – Expenditure $ = $0. This should also include your in-kind contributions, so remember to list these in the expense columns of your budget.
If you have any queries, please contact the North East Community Fund team via email communityfund@northeastlink.vic.gov.au or phone 1800 105 105.