
Resource Guide
The Charter School Budget Guide: Budget for Success
Create a school budget that helps you achieve your goals as quickly—and as realistically—as possible.
Download Full Guide for FreeBudget for Your Growth Stage
It can be helpful to think about charter school growth as having three main stages: start-up, growth, and sustainable maturity Although these stages—especially the start-up stage—can face distinct budgeting challenges, there are some challenges that can course through all stages of growth.

Budgeting for Start-Up Schools: Overview
The start-up stage includes the first steps required to form a charter school: getting your charter approved, enrolling kids, hiring staff and teachers, launching, and running your school until 10 – 25% of your target enrollment has been achieved. From most perspectives—marketing, operational and financial—this can be the most challenging and stressful stage for charter school leaders.
The start-up stage can be focused on:
- Building a strong foundation for your school’s budget
- Staying flexible while anticipating multiple outcomes
- Creating an inclusive, transparent budgeting process that involves all key stakeholders

Budgeting for Start-Up Schools: Quick Overview
Schools in the growth stage can experience drastic changes. In the growth stage, schools are typically within 25 – 90% of target enrollment—a huge range. Depending on the model of your charter, years 3 – 5 can involve expansive growth. As enrollment stabilizes, you’ll become more flexible in your operations as revenue becomes more predictable.

Success Story
See Success StoriesSTARS Charter School
STARS partnered for money to run their school. They were able to embark upon building projects with minimal disruptions to their thriving programs. With the new, improved space, STARS has been able to dramatically increase enrollment.
View Case Study
Need money to run your school?
Get Started- Talk to a real person
- Get qualified in minutes
- Fund your school