Introduction

Lesson 4: Create a Budget 

You have now learnt the basic tools to put together a project - from defining your project to structuring your project and finding partners. 

There is just one final (but incredibly important) step left to cover, budgets. 

No matter what your project is; a publication, an exhibition, or creative development - you will almost always incur expenses and (hopefully) generate income.

Expenses might include fees, printing costs, advertising costs, travel & accomodation costs, rental fees, or venue hire.

Income might include commission fees, product sales, ticket sales, sponsorship, or grants.

Whatever they are, it is crucial to create an accurate budget to help you stay on top of your expenses and income. 

To get started, read this helpful guide on budgets.

How to Articles - Project Budgets

In this lesson, we'll focus on the two main aspects of budget-making:

1. Expenses

2. Income

Module 1: Expenses

To get started, think about the expenses your project will incur.

If you're having trouble understanding which costs you need to consider, check out the White Pube’s Successful Funding Application Library and review a few applications that are similar to your own project. Each application will have a detailed budget required for the proposal.

You’ll see how each expense category is inputted with a breakdown of costs. It is really important that all your estimated costs are well thought out, especially if you are looking to apply for funding from a public or private institution.

Expense categories might include:

• Travel & Accommodation - are there any travel or accommodation costs required? (public transport, national/international travel, taxis, hotel, etc.)

• Commission Fees - are you commissioning artists for example? If so how much will you pay them? To help you with accurate and fair fees, check out this guidance for paying artists

• Production Fees - will you require any techncial or production staff to create and present your project such as a lighting technician, sound engineer, welder, camera operator, etc.

• Salaries - how much will you pay yourself and other team members? 

• Materials - do you require any special creative materials to complete the project? 

• Advertising & Marketing - does your project require promotion to raise awareness? Such as social media ads, posters, flyers, publication relations, etc.) 

• Print & Digital Media - do you need to budget for someone to design your website? Or perhaps a designer to apply your official artwork to various formats? 

• Venue / Equipment Hire - do you need to rent a space or any equipment? Such as lights, cameras, speakers, microphones, etc.

• Overheads - will you need subscriptions to any websites or software? What about office supplies like pens and paper?

• Contingency - how much are you going to put aside for unexpected costs that may come up? Tip: assigning between 5% - 10% of your overall expenses is standard practice.

• In-Kind Support - are you receiving in-kind support from any partners? This could be venue costs, dedicated staff time, advertising etc. Be sure to include a detailed breakdown of in-kind support both in your expenses sheet and income sheet.

Tip: Always be sure to confirm prices with sellers / distributors etc. For example, say you need to rent a camera, a tripod, and a microphone for an event - don’t guess the price of each, instead reach out to a few rental companies and request a quote. Once you have a few quotes to compare, you can then add the most appropriate amounts to your budget. 

Lingo

Contingency: To account for cost uncertainty and to guarantee that the budget is not exceeded at a certain confidence level, a reserve fund needs to be added to your base cost estimate. This reserve amount, known as the contingency, is an estimated amount added to the project base estimate to cover the known-unknown risks in the project and to prevent cost overrun.

Example

Take a look at one of COMMUN’s budgets for a combined arts programme.

Expenses - Sample

Consider the following for your own project:

• What type of expenses am I expecting to incur?

• How much should I budget for each type of expense?

• How much should I put aside as contingency?

• Have I missed anything?

Your Turn

Download the below template and complete it for your project's expenses.

Expenses - Template

Congratulations!

You have completed the fourth and final lesson of this course!

You are now able to:

1. Define your project

2. Structure your project

3. Find partners

4. Create a budget

You have the tools to transform your idea into a well thought-out project :)

In our next course, we’ll guide you through how to apply for funding for your project to give you the best chances for a successful submission.