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Home » Everyday Leadership, Featured

Start Where You Are: Your Budget

Submitted by James Higginbotham on June 22, 2009 – 5:14 amNo Comment

Budgets are often an issue that cause a team leader the most trouble. Some things cannot get done without a budget. Often, church staff are restricted in what they can safely allocate and therefore have to make tough decisions. Those decisions don’t always benefit a church ministry that is trying to get stuff done.

If you want to obtain a budget for your team, you should consider investing some time understanding your church and how the budget works. Each church manages their budget differently: some manage it on a yearly basis, some quarterly; each church manages their budgets differently. Understanding how your church manages its budget is essential to learning how to gain a budget for your team.

There are often two kinds of church budgeting systems: zero-based budgets and line-item budgets. Zero-based budgets mean that every year each team must justify their intended expenses.  Line item budgets mean that each team has a base spending amount and may request an increase (or given a decrease) based on the church goals for the next time period. Learn which systems your church uses, when budget  requests are due, and what kind of other options you may have (emergency funds, unspent budgets, etc).

The next step is to make sure your team is making a positive impact today.  Church staff will not fund teams if they are not essential to church services and are failing to make a positive impact to the church. This requires a vision, healthy volunteers, and a team that is working together in a resourceful manner today. Staff often look for teams that are excellent stewards of the people they have before they give them money.

Finally, you need to understand that sometimes the staff want to provide you with a budget, but just can’t make it happen at the moment. Budgets often take time to obtain. Have patience. Continue to build your team. Be a steward of all that your team does. Start where you are.

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