Students for Life of America

Prepare for a great year by budgeting out all your expenses so that your group can have as big of an impact as possible!

1. Budgeting and fundraising are the only two ways you can ensure that there will be money to do important events throughout the year. The key to budgeting is to plan ahead. Create a group calendar for the school year and make sure to list all the events you are hosting, want to host, or that your group will be attending. For a blank calendar to fill in go here. In order to receive funding from your student government you will more than likely have to submit your budget as well as being prepared to defend it. Check with your student government about the necessary paperwork and deadlines. It is very important to submit your budget on time. You may also have to support your budget with a line item budget, such as the price of every binder bought for a retreat.

2. When budgeting, write down the projected costs for each event. For example,

Make sure you plan a little more for each event as things always seem to end up costing more then you anticipated. Chances are events will come up during the year that you don’t have planned and there needs to be money to ensure your group can host certain events as different situation arise.

3. You may want to check with the other pro-life groups in your area to get an idea of what they generally spend per year on certain items. If other pro-life groups aren’t available, you can even compare with other clubs on campus. If they’re active, chances are you would spend about the same in terms of advertisements, event promotions, and the like.

4. At the beginning of the year, especially if you are a newly established club, you may need to do a lot of fundraising in order to have any money to budget with. After the first year or two, however, you should be able to end the school year with enough money to last through the next school year. Then, all the fundraising you do one year will go towards either next year’s budget. This way if for some reason your group has a bad fundraiser or the money just isn’t coming in it won’t affect your plans for that year and hopefully by the next year you’ll have had time to make up for that fundraiser, or in the worst case, you’ll have to slim down what you do the following year.

5. Throughout the year it is very important to refer to your budget before and after every event you host. If it is your first year, it may be hard initially to make a budget and stick to it, but it is important to at least record everything you spent and what you spent it on so that the following year you will have a much greater idea of how much to budget for each event.

Download the Budgeting Guide.