Guidelines Funders will often include their policies on providing overhead funding in their guidelines. Many funders have policies regarding the percentage of overhead that they will allow in a project budget. Some do not allow any overhead at all to be included, while others allow overhead to be a specific percentage of total costs or personnel costs. Below is an excerpt of the grant guidelines, posted on the Web site of the United States-Japan Foundation. For this foundation, acceptable overhead expenses include rent, telephone, fax, copying, computer-related expenses, and postage. Note: The guidelines state that this foundation "will contribute no more than 10% of the sub-total of the project's expenses in overhead."