Proposal budgets are crucial to federal grant success

by Jim Abernathy

{Centered}: June 2013 (Vol. 6, No. 6)‏ - The Grantmanship Center

Your proposal budget should not only accurately reflect the costs of the project for which you seek funding; it should also reinforce the arguments you make in the narrative. "Better Grant Budgeting Can Improve Proposal Scores" (Local/State Funding Report, May 16, 2013) offers these tips:  

• Make sure the proposal budget and narrative agree.
• Present the budget using the federal spending categories in the program under which you are applying.
• Clearly explain how you arrived at the cost estimates.
• Submit a budget that is adequate to actually carry out the project if the grant is awarded rather than one that is set low to be more competitive.
• Include an explanatory budget narrative in the proposal. 

After making a grant, some federal funders require progress reports (for example, the Tracking Accountability in the Government Services Grants System of the Department of Health and Human Services) that include financial information. You may be also required to post financial data on such federal websites as USASpending.gov, Recovery.gov, paymentaccuracy.gov, federalreporting.gov, harvester.census.gov/sac, etc.