Full cost recovery

Many voluntary and community organisations find it hard to make ends meet, particularly with regards to funding overhead costs. Costs such as management, accommodation, governance and development, and support functions like finance and personnel, are essential to the efficient and effective running of a project. If the full costs of a project or service are not funded or ‘recovered’ then the future sustainability of the project, and indeed the organisation is put at risk.

This section provides an introduction to full cost recovery and is based on the well respected work of New Philanthropy Capital and ACEVO. Their work, ‘Full Cost Recovery: A guide and toolkit on cost allocation’ , is a template that provides organisations with a method to understand and calculate the full costs of projects.