This is a PSA that is most relevant for people who live in big organizations, rather than small ones or agencies. But there is something of an art to getting funding for projects.
Generally, how it works is that budgets are allocated annually or semi-annually, and they are accounted for on a quarterly basis. In my organization, big budgets are different from smaller budget items. There's often a threshold below which projects and budgets do not go through the main process.
This this in mind, one way to get funding is to 'exploit' (though it's not really exploitation in the negative sense) the gap between quarterly funding and ongoing ebbs and flows of budget. In other words, there's going to be money most often at the edges of quarters/budget-cycles.
This is actually fairly common knowledge among consulting agencies, judging from solicitations I get in...timely...fashions during these interstices. But it's something that took me a while to understand.
So here's my maybe-obvious, large corporation-centric advice:
- Find the person in your group who knows exactly what these dates are, how to access and manage purchase orders. This person may be an administrator, it may be a co-worker. If it's a co-worker, you will be able to find the person who knows this by the fact that they always seem to have budget for quirky projects.
- Have shovel-ready projects in your pocket. Discrete research or tactical design/builds are the best. Cultivate relationships with design, research, and consulting agencies, learn the RFP process (request for proposals). I don't mean having a 4-6 week Mad Men-style process (I mean, Jesus, that certainly does sound like a waste of time). More like 5-7 agencies/consultancies whose work you either know or where you have an initial contact. A useful RFP in my world is a page or two at most, with: a) context; b) budget; c) deliverables.
- A few weeks before the end of the quarter, find out how much money is left in the budget. Ideally, in a perfectly-run organization, the answer is zero! But because that's rarely the case (for a variety of perfectly reasonable, rational reasons), this is your time to make your discrete, carefully considered budget ask.
- You can also "tin cup" your project around a bunch of different groups where possible, getting portions of funding here and there, and pastiching that into full project funds. If your group has no money, that does not mean someone else's doesn't! In a matrixed organization, this is common.