If you are planning on raising money for salary here is how I would approach it. 

1/ Be clear about your timeline and expected execution. What not to do: "I need $45k to pay a research assistant for a year." 

Instead, do this: "With $45k, I would be able to hire Doug as my research assistant for one year.  Doug is instrumental to our team and has been volunteering part time for 3 months.  With Doug on our team full-time we would be able to get out to the field station in Florida and take 4 trips out on the boat to tag tiger sharks.  This is why our budget starts at $10k.  For $10k we would be able to get the field work done.  With an additional $20k, Doug would be able to analyze the samples we collect from the tiger sharks to examine 5 different hormones in their tissues.  We believe that the sharks may be stressed because of overfishing in their breeding grounds.  When it is difficult to find food we expect to see hormone X and hormone Y rise.  We plan to star this study in June and with a minimum of $10k we can get this going.  With more money we will be able to expand the project to do a year long study and you can find our detailed plan in this lab note." 

I am showing these examples here of people who have successfully raised money for salary.  However, in my opinion they did not do a good job of explaining how the money would be used.  They used other methods to be able to reach their goals.  If you have questions about this respond to this thread.