Chris Fenning explains why you need to tell funders how long your costs will keep running. They need to know if they're paying for one year or five years, not guess at the duration themselves.
Chapters
How to pitch an idea. Tip number 14: say how long the costs will go on for. Once we've built a thing or implemented a service or an idea, there's going to be costs to run, maintain, and support that idea, product, or service. In your pitch, you have to make it clear how long those costs are going on for so the people that support and fund your work know how many years, weeks, or months they're going to have to write a check to support that service. Very few things are pay to build and then free to use or free to maintain. So when you pitch your idea, make sure that you say how long the costs are going to go on for.