Reserve Target Calculator.

Set a real reserve target, in months of operating costs and in dollars, grounded in what would actually carry you through a realistic shock, so you know exactly what you are building toward.

First in Build Financial Resilience and Reserves.

Size the shock you are protecting against

What are the realistic shocks for you? A major funder lost, a slow season, a big unplanned cost, a delayed contract. List yours

How many months would it take to recover from the likeliest one, to replace the money or cut to fit?

Consider how exposed you are

How concentrated is your funding? If one or two sources are most of your money, you need a larger cushion

How lumpy is your cash, big gaps between inflows? Lumpier cash needs a larger cushion

Set the target and measure the gap

A common starting point is three to six months of operating costs, but yours depends on your concentration and lumpiness: more exposed, aim higher.

Your target, in months, and in dollars (months times monthly costs)

Your current reserve, truly unrestricted and set aside

The gap to your target, and a rough sense of how long, at a realistic saving pace, it would take to close

A reserve is built from money that is genuinely free, never from restricted funds. If you are not sure what is free, the True Available Cash Calculator settles it. And if you can never produce a surplus to save, the problem is upstream, in revenue or costs, not here. Uses the Months-of-Cash Calculator and the True Available Cash Calculator. Feeds the Reserve Policy Template and the Reserve Building Plan.

Your answers stay in your browser on this page and are never sent anywhere. Use Save or print to keep your copy.

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