Managerial Accounting Assignment

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Alentar Center Grant Proposal:

A Budgeting Case for a Non-Profit Organization

“Steven, you have a call on line one. Jennifer says that she knows you from college”,

the familiar voice coming through the phone system interrupted Steven’s thoughts as he was

reviewing work on an important consulting engagement. He graduated just three years earlier

and was recently promoted to Senior Manager at an accounting firm. He knew more than one

girl named Jennifer during his days at the university, but there was only one that he had worked

closely with, Jennifer Molina. They had worked as a team on a budgeting project in a

managerial accounting class.

After speaking with Jennifer, he was excited about the opportunity to have an impact on

the lives of some very special people. This time, the budgeting project they would develop

would be evaluated by funders with real money, ready to support a worthy cause. He knew that

a realistic budget would be required if Jennifer seriously hoped to gain the necessary funding. To

determine the feasibility of her proposal, Steven first turned to GuideStar

(http://www.guidestar.org/) to find relevant financial information related to a comparable

organization by reviewing the organization’s Form 990 (Tax Documentation) available on this

website. With this information at hand, Steven was ready to get to work as soon as he received

critical information from Jennifer on program specifics, constituents to be served, and tangible

outcomes to be achieved.

Background Information

While waiting for a bus into downtown Tucson, Jennifer could not stop thinking about

the non-profit organization that she had visited earlier in the week. She thought about how

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involved she had been in her small community back home, and how this involvement had faded

with her recent move to pursue her dreams of becoming a special education teacher. It was the

spring of her second year of teaching in the public school system and Jennifer felt that she was

finally confident with her new environment and workload to step out of her comfort zone and get

more involved in her community. Jennifer always had a passion for children, and wanted to

make a difference in their lives. That being said, there was one organization that she could not

forget. During college, Jennifer had volunteered at the Brighton Center and she wanted to

develop a similar nonprofit organization to help families in her new community. She was

grateful to have had the chance to revisit the organization’s facility and catch up with several

members of the Brighton Center during her recent visit to San Antonio, and now she was sure of

her cause.

The Brighton Center was founded in 1966, and in 1969 the non-profit began as a part of

the Up With Downs organization as a school for children with Down Syndrome.1 Now with

close to 50 years as part of the San Antonio community and a staff of almost 800, the Brighton

Center has helped the development of thousands of local children, all while maintaining the core

values of passion with purpose, striving for greatness, honoring relationships, and serving with

integrity.2

The Project

Jennifer was excited to finally start a non-profit organization similar to the Brighton

Center where she could truly make a difference, and she wanted to get started as soon as

possible. After a few weeks of brainstorming, Jennifer decided to name her nonprofit

organization the Alentar Center. The Spanish meaning of alentar is to encourage or inspire,

1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqXEkG3ZqHg 2 http://brightonsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Core-Values-Graphic-Edited.jpg

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which is exactly what she hoped to accomplish for children with special needs and their parents.

The next step was to secure the required funding so she was in the process of developing a grant

proposal. She had drafted the proposal narrative, but she felt overwhelmed at the idea of

developing a budget for the organization until she thought back to her course work at the

university. She immediately thought about the managerial accounting class she had taken and

her partner for the class project, Steven Johnson. He had been a good partner to work with and

she recalled that he was planning to pursue a career in accounting. She smiled as she searched

for his name on the websites of accounting firms in the area, and remembered that instructors

had told them that classmates might someday be associates in the business world. She got

excited when she thought to herself, “Here I am calling my classmate to work with me in the real

world. Let’s hope my professors were right. Who would have ever guessed I would be putting

together a real project to help real people.”

After a brief conversation, Jennifer was relieved at the positive response she received

from Steven. He seemed genuinely interested in her organization and was willing to help her

develop the budget needed for the grant proposal. She forwarded Steven a copy of the project

narrative for the grant proposal and the worksheet she had started to gather information for the

budget. She let out a sigh of relief knowing that the grant proposal would be more complete with

Steven’s help.

Steven knew that the budget was a key element of most grant proposals and serves as a

blueprint for spending the project’s funds. The project narrative tells the story about the proposal

and the budget defines the expected cost for each component described to fulfill the service

commitment. An effective budget outlines the proposed project in fiscal terms and helps

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reviewers to determine how the project will be conducted.3 Exhibit 1 provides the project

narrative for the grant proposal. Jennifer’s initial budget worksheet is provided in Table 1 with a

brief description of the project, details about the number of clients to be served, and a list of

expenses. In reviewing the worksheet Steven noted that wages would require an additional 15%

to cover the cost of payroll taxes and benefits. He began to read the project narrative and circled

each phrase that implied a cost component. Jennifer was counting on Steven to help her think

critically about the costs needed to fund the grant proposal.

3 http://www.dartmouth.edu/~osp/docs/resources_docs/preparing_a_budget_14_v1_10-16-13.pdf

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Exhibit 1

ALENTAR CENTER GRANT PROPOSAL

Precious Minds, New Connections

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: The Precious Minds, New Connections (PMNC) program aims

to enhance the quality of life of children with disabilities or developmental delays, as well as the

lives of their caretakers. For many families, taking care of their children is learned throughout

the process, and most of the time without training. Alentar believes that training parents with the

essential tools allows them to understand and address their child’s developmental delays or

disabilities so that the child can reach his or her full potential. PMNC also acknowledges the fact

that many families are unprepared for what happens after their child ages out of special needs

programs and strives to be the gateway that gives families information on ways to prepare for the

time when their child transitions into adult based care programs.

The goal of the PMNC program is to reach up to 200 parents who have children with disabilities.

The Alentar Center has the support of the community through projected corporate support in the

amount of $40,000 and foundation grants in the amount of $60,000. This grant proposal is for

$50,000 to help fund the PMNC program which is broken down into three components described

below.

1. Early childhood development resources. A ten-week training seminar for parents will

focus on educating parents about early childhood development, special education laws,

and how to become their child’s best advocate. The weekly training sessions will be one

and a half hours long. In order to ensure that parents are able to be attentive, we will be

providing child care services that can accommodate the various needs of the children

whose parents attend. Each participant will receive a handbook that outlines the lessons

of the course, as well as additional resources the caregiver might need. The handbooks

will also include weekly homework tasks that monitor the progress of the parent and

child. Each session will have an overarching theme, in which participants receive a small

goodie bag that has the additional resources for the family to use at home.

2. Resources for children who are aging out of special needs programs. The first five

months will center around ways families can prepare to transition into adult based

programs, including how to pick the best suited organization for their child. The latter

workshops will bring in outside organizations to present the services they provide. As an

incentive, families who participate in all ten workshops will be given a reduced family

package to Morgan’s Wonderland, a theme park that serves children with special needs.

3. Monthly meetings with seminar leaders, parents and their children will address concerns

or questions regarding the program and build positive relationships between parent and

child. This is an opportunity for parents to discuss their progress in implementing skills

learned during the seminars. It is also an opportunity for parents to address any concerns

they might not feel comfortable addressing in larger settings.

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Table 1

Amount of funds requested 50,000$

Number of clients to be served 200

Type of Cost

(Variable or

Fixed) Price each

Estimated

Monthly

Cost

Fixed 38,000

Fixed 40,000

Fixed 2,000

Variable

Variable 35.00 7,000

Variable 2.50 500

Mixed

Fixed 8,000

Fixed 10,000

Variable

Additional needs identified:

Indirect costs:

Promotional materials and website

Furnishings (ADA accessability ramps)

Specialized equipment (20 stations @ $500/ea)

Utilities and Maintenance

Guest Speakers (4 Honorariums @ $500/each)

Supplies

Teaching materials

Completion Certifcates

Alentar Center Grant Proposal

Description of the project:

Alentar Center provides education and support services to children with disabilities or

learning differences and to their families. The goal of the organization is to enable the

children to realize their full potential and to achieve their highest capability.

Program expenses:

Program director

Teachers (2 @ $20,000 each)