Writing a proposal and a budget

1The concept note

In 2 to 4 pages: the problem and the needs (with dated, sourced data), the target population and number of people, the objective and expected results, the main activities, your organisation's added value (presence, access, experience, partners), the estimated budget and the duration. The donor must understand within 5 minutes why you, why now and why this approach.

2The full proposal

• Needs analysis: sources (multi-sector needs assessments, humanitarian response plan, cluster data), the most vulnerable groups, disaggregation by sex, age and disability.
• Intervention logic: theory of change and logframe with indicators, baselines and targets (see the MEAL course).
• Implementation methodology: timeline, targeting, partners, coordination with the cluster and the authorities.
• Cross-cutting issues: protection, gender, accountability, environment, do no harm.
• Risks and mitigation measures, including security and access.
• Monitoring and evaluation and exit or sustainability strategy.

Strictly respect the format, page limit and deadline: a late proposal is not read.

3The budget

• Direct costs: project staff, activities, equipment, transport, offices assigned to the project, monitoring and evaluation, visibility.
• Indirect costs (overheads): a percentage set by the donor. For European Union humanitarian aid, it is capped at 7% of eligible direct costs.
• Each line has a unit, quantity, unit cost and duration, and a charging percentage if the resource is shared between projects.
• The budget narrative justifies each line: why this cost, how it was calculated.
• Check consistency: every activity in the proposal has costs, and every cost serves an activity. Calculate the cost per beneficiary to assess cost-effectiveness.

4Organising proposal production: backward planning and roles

The quality of a proposal depends less on the talent of one writer than on how the work is organised. Proposals are often rejected for avoidable reasons: inconsistent budget and narrative, missing annexes, out-of-date data, last-minute submission on an overloaded platform. The method below is suited to a call with a three-week deadline; it can be compressed to five days for an emergency allocation.

The standard backward schedule (21-day deadline)

Submit at least 48 hours before the deadline. Donor platforms slow down in the final days, electronic signatures expire and field connections drop. A proposal submitted one minute late is inadmissible, however good it is.

The roles matrix

The proposal kick-off meeting

It lasts one to two hours and sets: the core idea in three sentences (problem, response, expected change), the areas and target population, the order of magnitude of the budget, the partners and their roles, the sections and their authors, internal deadlines, version control rules (a single master file, a standardised file name with date and version), and the channel for questions to the donor. A one-page record is circulated the same day.

The single set of figures rule

Before any writing begins, the team sets out the key figures in a single reference table: number of people targeted by sex, age and disability, number of households, average household size, quantities per activity, transfer value, duration, exchange rate used. All writers use this table. Any change goes through the coordinator and is reflected in the narrative, the logframe and the budget on the same day.

5Writing the sections that decide the score

Evaluators read dozens of proposals. They are looking for evidence, not intentions. Each section must answer the donor's implicit question: "Why should I fund this, with this organisation, now?"

The needs analysis

• Dated and named sources: Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO), multi-sector assessments, cluster data, nutrition surveys, protection monitoring, the organisation's own assessments with their methodology and sample. Any data older than twelve months must be justified or updated.
• Disaggregation: by sex, age and disability (the Washington Group questions are the reference for identifying disability), and by status (internally displaced people, returnees, host community).
• Gap against standards: express needs as a measurable gap. For example, water availability of 7 litres per person per day against the Sphere indicator of 15 litres; 1 latrine for 70 people against the Sphere target of at least 1 for 20 in the medium term (1 for 50 in the acute phase).
• Analysis of existing responses: who does what where (cluster "3W/4W" data), coverage gaps, reasons why the need persists.
• Voices of affected people: priorities expressed during consultations, differences between women, men, young people and older people.

Counting the people targeted

This is one of the most frequent sources of error. A distinction must be made between beneficiaries per activity and unique beneficiaries (a person who receives both a transfer and a hygiene kit counts only once in the total). The method: draw up a table activity by activity, estimate the overlaps (for example, all households receiving transfers also receive a kit), then calculate the unique total. State the average household size used and its source. ECHO, BHA and the pooled funds ask for this unique total; a total that simply adds up the activities is spotted immediately.

The intervention logic

• A single, realistic specific objective, with measurable outcome indicators, a baseline and a target.
• Results that flow from the needs analysed, each with its detailed activities: what, how many, where, for whom, by whom, when.
• At ECHO, using the Key Results Indicators (KRIs) proposed by the donor for each sector is strongly recommended; they make aggregation and comparison easier. The gender-age marker assesses how far differences in needs by sex and age are taken into account, the adaptation of assistance, participation and risks; the resilience marker assesses risk analysis, vulnerability reduction, the strengthening of local capacities and opportunities for links with development.
• For technical standards, cite precisely the Sphere standard or companion standard (Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, INEE Minimum Standards for Education, Minimum Economic Recovery Standards) with which the activities comply, and explain any deviation justified by the context.

Implementation approach and modalities

Justify the choice of modality (in-kind, cash, vouchers, services) with a feasibility analysis: market functionality, physical and financial access, stated preferences, protection risks, cost-efficiency. For cash transfers, explain how the value was calculated (minimum expenditure basket and gap covered, recommendation of the cash working group), the frequency, the payment mechanism and the management of personal data.

Risks, access and security

A useful risk matrix sets out, for each risk, its likelihood, impact, mitigation measure and residual risk; it covers security, access, fiduciary risks (fraud, diversion), protection risks and sexual exploitation and abuse, market risks (inflation, stock-outs), partner-related risks and reputational risks. Donors appreciate an organisation that acknowledges residual risks rather than rating them all "low".

Accountability, localisation and exit

Describe the complaints and feedback mechanism (channels, response times, handling of sensitive complaints), participation in decision-making, the real role of local partners (share of the budget, place in governance, overheads) and the exit or transition strategy (trained management committees, links with technical services or social protection).

Quick-read test: an evaluator who reads only the summary, the first sentence of each paragraph and the logframe must understand the project. Write paragraphs that start with their conclusion.

6Building the budget step by step

A budget is not an accounting exercise done at the end: it is the workplan expressed in figures. It is built from the activities and resources, line by line, with explicit assumptions. The following method applies to most donors; only the nomenclature of the headings and some eligibility rules change.

Step 1: start from the list of activities and resources

For each activity in the logframe, list what is needed: people (who, how many months, at what percentage), goods (what, how many, at what price), services (service providers, rental), travel, and support costs. Quantities are calculated from standards: for example, one handpump for a maximum of 500 people according to Sphere, one hygiene kit per household with replenishment depending on duration, one community mobiliser for a defined number of households.

Step 2: set unit costs in a defensible way

• Salaries: the organisation's current salary scale, including statutory social charges, with an annual adjustment if the scale provides for one.
• Goods: recent quotations, framework agreement prices, previous purchase prices, market monitoring data; cite the source in the budget narrative.
• Exchange rate: use the official rate prescribed by the donor or by the organisation's policy on the date of preparation, state it, and anticipate the effect of depreciation on local costs.
• Inflation: in high-inflation contexts, apply a justified forecast rate to local cost lines in the second year or second half-year.

Step 3: allocate shared costs correctly

A resource that serves several projects (coordinator, accountant, rent, vehicle) is charged using a documented and verifiable allocation key: actual time spent (timesheets), floor space occupied, kilometres driven, number of people. The percentage entered in the budget must match what happens later: an auditor compares timesheets with charges. Two absolute rules: the sum of the charges for a single resource never exceeds 100%, and a cost cannot be charged both directly and as part of indirect costs.

Step 4: distinguish direct costs, indirect costs and ineligible costs

Step 5: handle co-financing and contributions

If the donor requires co-financing, its source (own funds, another donor), amount and the lines concerned must be stated. Co-financing from another donor means the same expenditure must not be reported twice: a clear split by line or by percentage is planned from the budget stage. In-kind contributions (premises provided by a municipality, volunteer work) are accepted only if the donor allows it and their valuation is documented.

Step 6: write the budget narrative

For each line: the description, the link with the activity or result, the calculation (unit, quantity, unit cost, duration, percentage), the source of the price, and any justification for a high or unusual cost. A good budget narrative allows an evaluator to redo every calculation without asking a question.

Step 7: calculate the control ratios

• Cost per person or per household reached (unique beneficiaries), to be compared with similar projects and cluster benchmarks.
• Share of staff costs in direct costs, to be justified if it seems high for the modality.
• Share of assistance reaching people directly (value of transfers, kits, services).
• For cash transfers, the cost-transfer ratio: the non-transfer costs of the cash component divided by the value of the transfers. It falls sharply with scale and repeated payments.

7Full example: budget and budget narrative for a cash and WASH project

Fictional context: the NGO "Terre Commune" is preparing a 12-month proposal for Kalembo district, where 14,000 displaced people live in two sites and with host families. The multi-sector assessment shows average water availability of 7 litres per person per day, widespread reliance on debt and meal reduction, and functioning markets. The cash working group has set the minimum expenditure basket (MEB) at USD 170 per month for a six-person household and recommends covering about 50% of the gap, i.e. USD 85 per month.

Reference figures set at kick-off

• Multipurpose cash transfers: 1,200 households for 3 months, USD 85 per month, via mobile money.
• Hygiene kits: 1,500 households (the 1,200 cash households and 300 highly vulnerable host households).
• Rehabilitation of 10 boreholes fitted with handpumps, i.e. a theoretical capacity of 5,000 people based on the Sphere threshold of 500 people per pump.
• Average household size: 6 people (site registration). Unique beneficiaries: 1,500 households, i.e. 9,000 people, as the borehole users belong to these households.

The detailed budget (USD)

Extracts from the budget narrative

• 1.4 Community mobilisers: 12 mobilisers (6 women and 6 men), i.e. one mobiliser for every 125 households, responsible for verifying registration, hygiene promotion, referral to the complaints mechanism and supporting households without a phone. Salary according to the organisation's scale (step 2), social charges included.
• 1.7 Country coordinator at 10%: strategic oversight, representation with the authorities and donors. The percentage reflects the split of working time across the office's eight projects, documented by monthly timesheets.
• 2.1 Transfers: value set at 50% of the minimum expenditure basket in line with the recommendation of the district cash working group; three monthly payments to cover the lean season; adjustment possible, with the donor's agreement, if price monitoring shows an increase of more than 10% in the basket.
• 3.1 Boreholes: average cost based on three quotations and on the cost of rehabilitations carried out last year in the same area (replacement of the rising main, the pump, the apron and the drainage system, disinfection and testing).
• 5.1 Vehicle rental: rental is preferred to purchase, as it is cheaper over 12 months and avoids any issue with asset disposal at the end of the project.

The control ratios

What the cross-review corrected

The first version included the purchase of two vehicles (USD 64,000), hygiene kits for 1,200 households whereas the narrative announced 1,500, and a total of 16,200 beneficiaries obtained by adding up the activities. The review replaced the purchase with rental, aligned the quantities with the reference table and recalculated unique beneficiaries at 9,000 people. It also added the water quality testing line, which was missing from the budget even though the indicator appeared in the logframe.

A defensible budget can be recognised by three things: every line refers to an activity, every amount can be recalculated from the budget narrative, and the ratios have been calculated and commented on before the evaluator does so.

8Quality control: the reviewer's grid and costly mistakes

Before submission, someone who did not write the proposal reviews it against the donor's evaluation grid, then against the consistency grid below. Country-based pooled funds typically assess strategic relevance, logic and technical quality, cost-effectiveness, management and monitoring, the integration of cross-cutting issues and the partner's capacity; ECHO examines relevance to the HIP, the quality of the needs analysis, the intervention logic, feasibility, cost-effectiveness and the markers.

Consistency grid

Common mistakes

• "Copy-pasting" a previous proposal: the name of another district or another donor left in the text immediately destroys credibility.
• Unrealistic timeline: planning borehole works during the rainy season, international procurement in one month or recruiting the whole team in two weeks.
• Lump-sum lines ("miscellaneous", "contingencies", "logistics: 20,000"): most humanitarian donors refuse contingency reserves and require a breakdown.
• Staff at 100% everywhere: charging the same person at 100% to several projects leads to certain disallowance at audit.
• Underestimating the budget to win: an unrealistic unit cost is paid for during implementation through reduced activities, amendments and a damaged relationship with the donor.
• Decorative cross-cutting issues: a gender section that translates into no activity, no disaggregated indicator and no cost.
• The invisible local partner: mentioned in the text, absent from the budget and the governance.

Responding to the donor's questions

After submission, most donors send questions or revision requests with a short deadline. Good practice: respond point by point in a table (question, answer, change made and its location in the document), submit a revised version with tracked changes, keep all the documents consistent, and never accept a budget cut without reducing the targets or activities proportionately, and explaining why.

9Adapting the proposal and budget to the context

Specific features of some donors

• ECHO: online Single Form, intervention logic with a principal objective, a specific objective and results; Key Results Indicators; gender-age and resilience markers; detailed justification of the choice of modalities; visibility requirements. The budget is presented according to the structure of the grant agreement, with indirect costs capped at 7%.
• US donors: detailed budget and budget justification according to the federal cost categories (personnel, fringe benefits, travel, equipment, supplies, contractual, other, indirect costs); compliance with the Uniform Guidance; the donor's standard indicators; monitoring and safeguarding plans.
• Country-based pooled funds: proposal and budget submitted on the fund's grant management system, aligned with the allocation strategy; programme support costs of no more than 7%; technical review by the clusters and financial review by the fund's management unit.
• UN agencies: programme document negotiated with the agency, often using its own templates; check what is included in support costs and what can be charged directly.

The best adaptation to context is visible in the budget: a project in an insecure area with no security line, or a remotely managed project with no budget for third-party monitoring, loses credibility in the eyes of an experienced evaluator.

10Interview questions and key references

Interview questions

1. "You have 10 days to submit a proposal. How do you organise yourself?"

A strong answer describes a backward schedule with a 48-hour margin, a kick-off meeting, setting the reference figures, allocating sections with deadlines, a budget built in parallel with the narrative on the basis of the activities, a cross-consistency review and an external review using the donor's grid.

2. "How do you calculate the number of beneficiaries of a multi-sector project?"

The candidate distinguishes between beneficiaries per activity and unique beneficiaries, explains how overlaps are estimated, the household size and its source, disaggregation by sex, age and disability, and points out that donors aggregate these figures at national level, hence the requirement to avoid double counting.

3. "The donor asks you to cut the budget by 20%. What do you do?"

Analyse the lines, propose scenarios (reducing targets, area, duration or a component), protect essential functions (monitoring, accountability, security), reduce the results accordingly in the logframe and the narrative, and explain the effects to the donor. Refuse a cost reduction without a corresponding reduction in commitments.

4. "What is the difference between a shared direct cost and an indirect cost?"

A shared direct cost is charged to the project using a documented allocation key that can be justified with supporting documents, whereas an indirect cost covers the organisation's general functions through a capped or negotiated percentage; the same cost cannot appear in both categories.

5. "How do you justify the value of a cash transfer?"

Cite the minimum expenditure basket, the analysis of the gap that households cannot cover, the cash working group's recommendation, the frequency and duration, price monitoring and the adjustment mechanism, as well as the calculation of the cost-transfer ratio.

6. "What does an evaluator look at first in a budget?"

The total and its consistency with the scale of the project and the organisation's capacity, the cost per beneficiary, the share of staff and support costs, the presence of lump-sum lines, expensive equipment, and the correspondence between activities and budget lines.

Key references

• The Sphere Handbook (2018 edition): Humanitarian Charter, Protection Principles, Core Humanitarian Standard and minimum standards by sector.
• Humanitarian Standards Partnership standards: Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, INEE Minimum Standards for Education, Minimum Economic Recovery Standards, Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards.
• Single Form, user guide and guidance on Key Results Indicators, the Gender-Age Marker and the Resilience Marker: ECHO.
• US Code of Federal Regulations, Title 2, Part 200, and the US humanitarian donor's current application guidelines.
• Global guidelines and operational manuals of the country-based pooled funds: OCHA.
• Washington Group questions on disability and the IASC Guidelines on the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action (2019).
• CALP Network tools on the minimum expenditure basket and cost-efficiency analysis of cash transfers.
• PMD Pro guide (Project Management for Development Professionals): chapters on design and budgeting.