If you read only one article about Cash Cows read this one

The blog explains how every organisation—charity, social enterprise, or business—must regularly review its activities using the Focus Finder© to identify what truly creates impact (superheroes), what generates income (cash cows), what quietly drains resources (thieves), and what supports impact without financial return (angels). Using buildings as an example, it shows how any resource can shift between quadrants over time, and why leaders must reassess their “cash cows” in today’s changing economic and environmental climate.

Before we start - A word about superheroes

Sixteen years ago I created a tool The Focus Finder© to help social enterprises balance maximising social impact and future income i.e finding the superhero activities that they should be doing.

As one of the 100+ tools I have developed while running my consultancy, I hadn’t had much cause to use it this year until I was working with an organisation that is moving from statutory funding to needing to find new sources of potentially earned income. It coincided with a course on maximising the reach of blogs, which advised against using stock photos, so I took the opportunity to paint a cash cow so AI would be happy! But it has also got me thinking that at the moment, just as farmers are having to think about the impact of the climate( hot, hot) and the health of their stock and potentially looking at new crop types or breeds of animal, similarly every organisation, be it charity, social enterprise or business needs to be thinking about the health of their cash cows and do they need to do something different.

But before we start on cash cows, I want to stress that superheroes are better. So your analysis of what you do needs to first put all your activities into one of the four quadrants of the Focus Finder©.

Identifying cash cows, superheroes, angels and thieves

Everything you do or have or you spend resources on which might be time or money will fit in one of the quadrants of the focus finder. Think of this process as similar to a financial audit but instead of looking at money flows you are auditing the organisation's activities and resources.

You naturally will be doing this, particularly in the current environment to consider viability in financial terms e.g. the impact of the change in National Insurance on your payroll costs but the difference is that this is considering not only cost but impact in terms of you achieving your vision as an organisation and the role of the activity, person or resource and how it may have changed.

You need to consider that some may have moved since you last reviewed your activities.

When I started writing this I was thinking that what I would do would be to find examples of superheroes, cash cows etc so that you understood how to segment what you do and have but then I realised the most useful way to do it is just to show how anything can fit in any segment and move quite easily.

A wolf in sheep's clothing or…?

So let us consider how a building can fit or move between any of the segments.

Buildings as superheroes

Buildings are a superhero if some or all of these apply so that the building is a viable way of you changing the world and achieving your vision:

They allow you to undertake your key activity in a purpose-designed space which is easily accessible for your target audience including staff or great for what you do- purpose fulfilling
They save you money e.g. own or long term rent with long term agreement, low maintenance costs, low running costs - money saving
They are used to full capacity either by you or you rent/sublet space to generate income - income generating

Maximising impact - the potential role of a building

So now let's consider how buildings may be world-savers, maximising impact with no regard for financial viability. Some examples:

They allow you to offer warm and cool spaces, attracting and helping lots of people who use the building but do not financially contribute (like our wonderful local cafe in Active in Killamarsh with powerful air-conditioning and no requirement to buy anything) NB this is council run and people do often buy things, and potentially it should save demands on social services if people are less impacted by climate change
Similar to the above, buildings acting as community hubs, bringing people together, addressing isolation, but are not financially viable
They are the perfect spaces for the economic activity/businesses based in them in terms of the location or facilities so organisations are doing what they need to fulfil their mission in terms of how they change the world but they cost a lot

Buildings as cash cows

As cash cows, buildings generate income but do not help you fulfil your purpose/actively stop you. For example:

They generate good rental income and are operating at full capacity so you generate more than you might get in terms of interest in an investment account, but you do not use the space to change the world/ the rental stops you from maximising how you change the world
They are cheap or even free so they allow you to operate your organisation but they are not really a good building to achieve what you want, either because of the location or the quality of the space/facilities available

Buildings as thieves

I use buildings as examples of how something can move from superhero to thief because I have seen this happen so often for charities and as shifts in working practices, the economic environment and climate change have their impact. For example

They become unviable because of running costs e.g. heating or cooling or rates or rent etc
They are not used to capacity often because tenants who rented have left and are not replaced so the loss of income makes the building a net drain on resources
The quality of the space is not good/appropriate, impacting activities and efficiency, making the activities not financially viable or low quality putting the organisation at risk
They are now in the wrong place either because the area or who/what you need has changed

What next

The Focus Finder© applies whether you are a considering your part-time side hustle or running a multi-national corporation, charity or social enterprise. So consider the elements of what you do and how you do it, what you spend time on and for everything think about does it really change the world as you want to, does it make or cost you money, and start to populate your focus finder. Email me Sarah@inspire2aspire.co.uk to get a copy of the tool or to organise a free chat.

Read more here if you want to find some other ways of analysing what you are doing or want to improve your effectiveness:

Be really clear about what you offer

Do you really know what is working?

How can you thrive in adverse conditions?

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Tags: strategic development leadership insight Social Enterprise Tools Focus Finder(c)

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