Book excerpt: Step-by-step guidance, insider tips, and all the tools you need to create budgets and financial plans that win grants Grants are a major source of funding in the nonprofit sector, and nonprofits invest considerable time, effort, and resources into obtaining them. A key aspect of any successful grant application initiative is budgeting and financial planning. A well-crafted budget, clearly delineating when, where, and how grant moneys will be applied, goes a long way toward selling a grantor on an applicant’s vision. Unfortunately, many nonprofit professionals lack the know-how required to create budgets that instill grantors with confidence. This book fills that much-needed gap. Authors James Aaron Quick and Cheryl Carter New walk you through the entire budgeting process, providing invaluable insider tips, guidelines, and rules of thumb. More importantly, they provide you with indispensable guidance including a complete, step-by-step budgeting system, with each step fully documented and accompanied by an arsenal of powerful tools, plus much more to help you transform your organization’s vision–and mission–into reality.