College Ministry Budgets

When we’re doing budgets, there’s always the question of what we spend where.  So, I thought I would give some thoughts on allocating money from my years of preparing them.  Because we all have different dollar amounts, different line itemizations, etc. (if any at all), here’s a very basic breakdown by percentages that could serve as a general guideline:

35% toward Discipleship/Equipping - this included money for couple’s who host students on a weekly basis, anything that helped assimilation into adult-life of the church, one-on-one times of discipleship (coffee, meals, etc.), resources, etc.

35% toward Events - this is not high because we did a lot, it’s high to subsidize costs.  In fact, most of this would go into one winter retreat and mission trips.  This included student scholarships, money toward the expenses of older mature believers coming along to build relationships, etc.

5% toward Campus Ministry - this is a small percentage because the best campus ministry is equipping the students individually to reach the campus versus doing major campaigns, etc.  Those can be effective, but not necessarily on commuter campuses.  Generally, I never spent this full amount.

10% toward Weekly Gatherings/Programming - this includes anything that goes into the service you have or gathering point you put on, whatever the format (aka technology, atmosphere stuff, coffee, anything that goes into that time…)

15% allocated as miscellaneous - this is a cushion put in the budget.  Vision tends to change and evolve over a year’s time - at least it should - so this amount was allocated to allow room for those changes and additions to what God was doing in our ministry.