Budgets seem to hold the most terror for individual grant seekers, who have a tendency to leave out expenses and get totally flummoxed in deciding how to get some money for their own time and labor into a grant budget. If you claim expenses related to your independent work on your federal tax return, you already have an idea of the kinds of things to include in a grant budget. Everything that goes on that form can go into your grant budget: a portion of your rent or mortgage for a home studio or office, office or art supplies, computers, postage stamps, any special furniture you had to purchase, and so on.

It’s especially easy to leave out the cost of supplies you already have on hand. If you will use film that’s stored in the back of your refrigerator to document your project, include the cost of that film as part of your budget; you’ll have to replace it, after all. Just because you bought that ream of paper before you started work on your book doesn’t mean you can’t include its cost in your budget.

I like to suggest that grant seekers imagine they’re going shopping for absolutely everything they need to carry out their project. Put every item into an imaginary shopping cart, and add up the costs. That’s the cost of your project.

If you need major new equipment, like a computer, to carry out your project, you should include a portion of its cost in your project budget, usually a third to a fifth of the cost. Taking part of the cost is similar to the depreciation cost you’d use in preparing your tax return.

Finally, we come to the really important part—money for you. Don’t agonize over this; work it out. If the project will consume 100 percent of your normal working hours for a year, then 100 percent of an appropriate salary for you can be part of the budget. If you’re going to work on the project on average a day each week, include 20 percent of a salary. Notice that this is just how we figured personnel costs for project budgets in Chapter 15.

“But what,” you might well ask, “is an appropriate salary?” To answer that, you’ll have to get very realistic with yourself. Sure, you think you should be making at least as much as a minor movie star, but no foundation is going to pay you a million or two for your time. So think about what’s a typical salary in your community for other professionals—and don’t just think about top surgeons and lawyers, even if they live next door to you. Also take into account where you are in your career. Someone with 20 years’ experience can expect to earn more than a recent college graduate.

Rather than putting a “salary” line in your budget, try calling it a “stipend,” which implies a subsidy for living expenses. If you’re paying helpers or assistants only a token amount, “honorarium” is a good word to indicate that the fee is a token one and that the labor is really worth much more.

Keep in mind that you want the funder to look at the number and think, “Sure, that makes sense.” A salary or fee for the artist in the $30,000 to $70,000 range probably won’t raise eyebrows in most instances. But you have to relate the amount to the time you’ll spend on the project, where you are in your career, and the amount other successful professionals in your community make.

You can download a sample budget for an individual artist project at idiotsguides.com under “Book Extras.”

Literally millions of dollars in grant money are available to individuals. You just have to know where to look for it and how to approach the funders.