Project charter: templates and examples

A project without a charter is like building a house without a blueprint—you might get started, but things will fall apart fast. A project charter lays the groundwork, turning scattered ideas into a shared plan with purpose, direction, and accountability. In this post, we’ll walk through how to create one that sets your team up for a successful build.

What is a project charter?

A project charter is a template that defines your project’s purpose, goals, scope, stakeholders, and key details. Created during the initiation phase, it acts as both a pitch and a contract—justifying the project and aligning the sponsor and manager from the start.

This alignment is critical in project management. According to PMI, unclear goals and milestones are the leading cause of project failure. Once approved, the charter becomes the foundation for the full project plan.

What is a project charter template?

A project charter template provides a structured starting point for defining your project’s purpose, goals, scope, stakeholders, and other key details. It removes the need to build a document from scratch—so you can spend less time formatting and more time aligning your team.

Many templates come as static files, like Word or Google Docs. These work for simple projects, but they’re harder to manage as things grow. They’re easy to lose, difficult to update collaboratively, and not ideal when multiple stakeholders need visibility or when you’re juggling multiple projects.

For a more scalable approach, use project management software to build and host your charter. Platforms like Airtable let you create interactive, centralized charters that evolve with your project. You can link related tasks, assign owners, switch between calendar, timeline, or grid views, and keep everything in one place—so your team stays in sync from kickoff to closeout.

Project charter templates 

Below, you’ll find a range of project charter templates—from simple one-pagers to AI-powered tools that guide you through capturing key details and presenting them clearly to stakeholders. Use them as-is or customize them to fit the unique needs of your project.

1. Simple project charter template

Use this template to capture the essential elements of any project—clearly, quickly, and in one place.

Project name
Choose a clear, descriptive title that instantly conveys the focus and purpose of the project.

Project manager
Name the person responsible for overall execution. Include their full name, contact details, and level of decision-making authority.

Project purpose
Briefly explain the business problem this project addresses and why it’s a priority now. Connect it to your company’s broader strategy.

Project objectives
List 2–4 SMART goals that define what success looks like. These should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Project scope
Outline what the project will deliver. Be specific about what’s in scope—and just as clear about what’s not to avoid confusion later.

Key stakeholders
Identify who needs to be kept informed, consulted, or involved in approvals. Clarify who owns decisions at each key milestone.

Project team members
List core team members (typically 4–10) and briefly note their roles or responsibilities within the project.

Estimated budget
Provide a rough cost estimate, including a high-level breakdown across major categories like labor, tools, and deliverables.

Estimated schedule
List key milestones and timeframes. Include estimated durations for each phase or deliverable.

Ideal use case

Use this template when you need a streamlined, easy-to-complete project charter that covers all the basics—from purpose and scope to team and budget. It’s ideal for quick alignment and fast-moving projects.

2. Project template for project management

Airtable’s project management template is more than a place to draft your project charter—it’s a dynamic workspace that brings your charter to life. Use it to capture and organize key project details like goals, scope, stakeholders, and timelines in a structured format that’s easy to share and update.

Unlike static docs, this template uses linked records to connect high-level charter elements—like objectives and success metrics—to the day-to-day tasks and due dates that drive execution. That means your charter stays actionable and up-to-date, not buried in a shared folder and forgotten.

It also includes built-in project tracking across your organization. This gives you visibility into parallel initiatives—helping you identify potential conflicts, align with complementary projects, and strengthen your business case with data-backed context.

Ideal use case

Perfect for project managers who want a centralized, AI-powered hub to manage programs, projects, and tasks. With views like Kanban, timeline, and grid, it’s especially useful for visualizing progress, spotting risks early, and keeping your charter connected to real work.

Download free template. 

3. Project template for resource planning  

Airtable’s resource planning template helps you get a clear, real-time view of your team’s capacity and availability—so you can make smarter, data-backed staffing decisions from the start.

When creating your project charter, this template is especially useful for accurately defining roles and responsibilities. You can identify the right people for the project based on current workloads, preventing overcommitment and setting more realistic expectations. The template includes a project planning workspace, AI-generated project briefs, and dashboards that surface key metrics like utilization and availability.

With these insights, you can confidently staff your project, align timelines with actual capacity, and flag risks before they impact delivery.

Ideal use case

Best for project managers juggling multiple teams or initiatives. Whether you're planning during peak periods or coordinating cross-functional efforts, this template helps you visualize workload, avoid bottlenecks, and keep your project charter grounded in operational reality.

Download free template.

4. Project template for AI project management

This template integrates AI directly into your project planning workflow—making it faster and easier to create a high-quality, data-informed project charter.

As you build your charter, the AI automatically generates project status summaries that translate complex health indicators into clear, actionable insights. It can even assess whether your proposed scope and timeline are realistic by referencing similar past projects in your workspace.

With Intelligent Categorization, the template proactively flags risks like scope creep, resource constraints, or misaligned stakeholders—helping you draft a more grounded, practical charter that’s aligned with your organization’s data and expectations.

Ideal use case

Ideal for project managers who want to speed up charter creation while improving accuracy. This template helps reduce revisions and back-and-forth by surfacing real-time insights and historical context—so you can deliver a stronger, more reliable charter on the first pass.

Download free template. 

5. Project template for project planning 

Airtable’s project planning template provides a flexible, structured workspace to turn big ideas into detailed, executable plans. It’s the ideal foundation for building a strong project charter—capturing essential elements like scope, timeline, responsibilities, and milestones in one place.

With real-time collaboration, built-in task ownership, and customizable dashboards, you can define your project’s purpose, align your team around shared goals, and establish accountability from the start. The template’s multiple views—including Gantt, calendar, timeline, and Kanban—help you and your stakeholders visualize the project clearly, making it easier to track progress and communicate the plan with confidence.

Ideal use case

Project managers who need to turn complex initiatives into step-by-step plans. Whether you're aligning cross-functional teams or managing multiple dependencies, this template keeps everything organized, visible, and in motion—all from a single online workspace.

Download free template. 

6. Project template for creative agencies 

This customizable template gives creative teams a clear roadmap for managing client proposals and building a strong foundation for the project charter. It breaks the process into 22 actionable steps—from “pitch client” to “outline pitch deck”—each with fields for status, deadlines, and descriptions to keep work moving forward.

By tracking the full proposal lifecycle, agencies can collect the information needed to populate key sections of the project charter, including purpose, objectives, scope, and stakeholder roles. The template ensures you're not only winning the work—but also setting the stage for aligned, well-planned execution once the project kicks off.

Ideal use case

Designed for creative agencies responding to a client’s request for proposal (RFP), this template helps you manage and track every stage of the proposal—from kickoff to final approval—all in one organized, collaborative workspace. It should help any marketer improve their project management system. 

Download free template. 

7. Project tracking template   

This template helps you turn high-level project goals—often defined in your project charter—into trackable, actionable work. You can link objectives to specific tasks, owners, and timelines, ensuring your team stays aligned from kickoff to delivery.

Views like timeline, calendar, and Gantt chart make it easy to visualize your product roadmap and schedule, while real-time updates, integrations, and automation keep your project plan current and connected. It bridges the gap between initial charter planning and day-to-day execution—so your charter stays a living guide, not a forgotten file.

Ideal use case

Useful for collaborative and agile teams managing fast-moving initiatives. This template helps translate your charter into a flexible, execution-ready plan—complete with task ownership, real-time dashboards, and synced workflows across tools.

Download free template. 

8. Project template for event planning 

This template gives event planners a centralized workspace to track everything—sponsors, speakers, vendors, budget, and timeline—in one organized place. By consolidating critical details, it makes it easy to draft a comprehensive project charter without digging through scattered docs or email threads.

Built-in AI features help accelerate planning by generating content like speaker bios, welcome scripts, or agenda blurbs. It’s a practical way to stay organized while turning your high-level charter into a detailed, execution-ready plan.

Ideal use case

Designed for teams managing complex events with multiple moving parts. This template simplifies event planning, streamlines project charter creation, and supports real-time coordination across timelines, budgets, and tasks.

Download free template. 

Key project charter elements

A project charter captures the why, what, and how of a project—typically in five core sections. While the format may vary by organization, most charters include the following components:

1. Purpose
Also called the project justification, this short section explains why the project exists. In 3–5 sentences, describe the problem being solved and why it matters to the organization—tying it back to strategic priorities where possible.

2. Objectives
List the specific, measurable outcomes the project aims to achieve. These should be concrete goals like “generate 200 new event registrations” or “launch a new feature by Q3.”

3. Scope
Define what’s in and out of scope. Outline the deliverables that will help you meet your objectives (e.g., “create a promotional email sequence”) and note any exclusions to avoid confusion later.

4. Stakeholders
Identify key players—including project sponsors, team members, and anyone with influence or approval authority. Clarify who is responsible for what and how each stakeholder will be involved.

5. Responsibilities, timeline, and budget
At this stage, estimates are enough. Provide a rough breakdown of the project duration, budget, and team structure to give stakeholders a sense of scale and resourcing needs.

Depending on your organization or industry, your charter may also include sections on risks, constraints, success criteria, or communication plans. But remember: a project charter is meant to be a high-level snapshot—not a detailed execution plan. That level of detail comes later in the project planning phase.

Benefits of using a template for a project charter

A project charter template makes it faster and easier to create a clear, complete, and convincing charter—improving your chances of approval and alignment from day one.

Here are the key advantages:

1. Standardize the process across teams

Templates create consistency. By saving a charter template in your project management tool, every project manager can follow the same framework—ensuring high-quality charters that align with your organization’s expectations.

2. Avoid missing critical information

Templates guide you through what to include—purpose, scope, objectives, stakeholders, and more—so nothing gets overlooked. Some even include built-in prompts or reminders to help you gather the right details.

3. Save time with built-in structure and automation

Many templates come with pre-filled sections, consistent formatting, and even AI-powered tools that generate draft content or automate updates. This is a major win, especially since documentation is one of the tasks project managers find most tedious.

4. Speed up the approval process

Just like a standardized resume format makes hiring easier, a consistent charter format helps decision-makers quickly understand and evaluate new projects. It reduces ambiguity and accelerates buy-in.

5. Eliminate blank-page anxiety

For newer project managers, starting from scratch can be overwhelming. A template with predefined fields and smart prompts lowers the barrier to entry and helps them get started faster.

The value only grows as you adopt more advanced tools. Moving from basic Docs to project management platforms unlocks features like AI-generated summaries, automated stakeholder notifications, and dynamic views. For instance, a resource management template can visually map stakeholder involvement—making your charter not just easier to build, but more persuasive to present.

How to create a project charter

A well-crafted project charter aligns teams, sets expectations, and increases the odds of stakeholder approval. Follow this four-step process to build a charter that’s clear, complete, and compelling.

Step 1: Define the project vision

Before filling out a template, clarify your project’s core vision.

Start by answering:

Consider who you’re pitching to. Tailor your messaging to address their interests and priorities—this makes your charter more persuasive.

Pro tip: Your company or sponsor may have specific charter requirements. If those aren’t documented, ask. Aligning with internal standards from the start increases your chances of approval.

Step 2: Find a project charter template

Using a template accelerates the process, reduces errors, and improves consistency across teams.

Templates guide you through each section—prompting you to add relevant project details like purpose, scope, and stakeholder roles. Advanced project management tools like Airtable offer templates that also include visualizations such as RACI charts or resource utilization maps, making it easier to present and justify your plan.

Pro tip: Look for templates that integrate with your project management platform. They let you connect charter details directly to timelines, tasks, and team data—all in one place.

Step 3: Collect necessary project information and fill in the template

Review the template and identify which details you already have and which need to be researched or confirmed.

For example, you might know the project’s objective, but not how it affects every stakeholder. In that case, interview stakeholders to understand their expectations, concerns, and influence.

If you’re using a tool like Airtable, mine your historical project data—resource usage, past budgets, and delivery timelines—to inform estimates and assumptions. 

Once you’ve collected all the information, fill in the sections of the project charter template that relate to your specific project. Remember, the charter is meant to give a project overview—planes above a forest, not magnifying glasses pointed at leaves. Keep each section short. Most will be a single sentence. 

Pro Tip: The best way to fill in each section depends on the requirements of your organization or Project Management Office (PMO). To help you match their expectations, find examples of internal project charters that won approval. Emulate these when filling out the template. 

Step 4: Build a risk mitigation plan 

Stakeholder pushback often stems from concerns about project risks. Anticipate objections—and earn trust—by proactively addressing them.

Start by identifying risks across common categories:

Then, prioritize your top 5–10 risks and map them in a simple matrix. For each, include:

Focus on what you’ll do to avoid risks—and how you’ll respond if they happen.

Pro tip: Tailor your plan to your audience. If a stakeholder has voiced specific concerns before, address them directly. It shows you’re prepared and helps build early alignment.

Project charter example: enterprise SEO growth initiative 

Project name
Enterprise SEO growth initiative – Q2 2025 launch

Project manager
Sam Rinko, Digital Marketing Manager
Email: x@gmail.com | Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX

Authority
Full budget approval up to $75K, stakeholder coordination, and vendor selection

Project purpose

This initiative aims to close a competitive gap in organic search rankings for high-intent keywords such as “sales automation software” and “CRM integration tools.” With 67% of B2B buyers starting their journey with search, improving SEO performance is critical to achieving our annual goal: a 40% increase in marketing-qualified leads (MQLs).

Project objectives

Project scope

Out of scope

Key stakeholders

Project team

Budget estimate: $68,500

Timeline and phases

Key milestones

Streamline project management with Airtable templates

Whether you're drafting a project charter or allocating resources, Airtable’s project management templates help you move fast. From a single AI-powered workspace, you can organize every project detail, generate custom views, collaborate with your team, and share real-time updates with stakeholders.