Consider we all work for the same organization and your team has been assembled to create the budget for our brand new grant funded program, to improve processing and examination of DNA evidence. The total budget will be $50,000 and the funding period is one year (12 months). As the selected team, you will create a realistic budget for our program. Include a spreadsheet detailing your budget, as well as a 350- to 700-word written explanation for how you decided to allocate the funds in your budget.

For inspiration of what you might include for your budget items, please review the budget items and categories on Worksheet 8.1 in Winning Grants Step by Step (O'Neal-McElrath, 2013), and The Nuts and Bolts of Grant Writing table listing of budget items on page 101 (Carr, 2015, p.101). I also showed and discussed a list of typical budget categories during class. You can also research federal grant budget worksheets. Please remember to include course concepts and reference our texts. Research and inclusion of unique references is optional but encouraged in this assignment.

When evaluating this project, I will be considering how inclusive the budget is, whether or not the expenses included seem realistic, and how organized and clear the spreadsheet and corresponding explanation is. I want to see a very detailed and inclusive budget addressing numerous item categories. I want to read detailed explanations of how and why you budgeted monies into each of the categories. As for realistic expenses, I'm more concerned with your thoughtful allocations to the budget categories and less about factual dollar amounts; a best guess is all that is required for dollar amounts.

Carr, C. (2015). The nuts & bolts of grant writing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

O'Neal-McElrath, T. (2013). Winning grants step by step: The complete workbook for planning, developing, and writing successful proposals (4th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.