Budgeting Basics: Revenue Streams

Once you've translated your dreams into numbers, the next step in crafting your budget proposal is to determine where your ministry's budget will come from. Typically, youth ministries derive their budget from a combination of three sources:

- Money from the church budget
- Student fees
- Fundraising.

Once you've determined your ministry's revenue streams, determine what line items in your budget you'll fund using each revenue stream. (A line item is a budget element that is separately identified. So within your youth ministry's budget, you will likely have separate line items for things like weekly programming, leadership development, retreats, camps, and mission trips - basically everything you previously dreamed up.) To do this, consider these questions:

- Under what circumstances will you charge student's money and therefore collect student fees?
- If you charge student's money for various events, how will you make your ministry affordable and accessible to all people regardless of their socioeconomic status?
- Under what circumstances will you fundraise? Do you need to fundraise to augment your ministry's regular operating budget or can fundraising be reserved only for special events?

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