Core costs often appear daunting to cover, however they can be broken down into three areas as listed below

Management

Governance costs

Monitoring and evaluation

Chief Officer

Consultation

Research and Development

Cost to develop new projects

Quality assurance

Professional development

Staff training

Support Services

Finance

IT

Fundraising activities

Office accommodation

Travel

Core Costs

Breaking these costs down in this way makes them easier to tackle, some funders may be prepared to pay for some of these areas of work, such as staff training or governance costs (think of it as supporting volunteers)

Where to get the money

• Find a funder, the easiest  in many  ways, but the funder may only be willing to pay for certain activities and their priorities may change after a number of years.
• Apportionment - Apportion overheads into project budgets so that they cover elements of the core.  For small organisations with only a few projects it is unlikely that this will be able to cover all the costs.
• Self generated - develop activities to raise money form your organisation.
• Developmental - Seek funding to develop the investment in infra structure of the organisation, only a short term activity
• Cost reduction - this only has a limited effect, if cost are cut too much the organisation will become over stretched