This guide – the first in our Strategies for Sustainability series – aims to help you make better strategic choices in your organisation.

It uses benchmarking data from similar heritage organisations to your own. It is based
on an analysis of publicly available financial data provided to regulators by participants in the heritage compass programme in England.

In this guide, we have focused on the role of cafés and shops in heritage organisations, often the first step in income generation for those seeking a financially sustainable future. We believe that the data from these organisations offers helpful insight into growth, sustainability and success.

And to help see the bigger picture, we have benchmarked this cohort against a comparison group of similar- sized non-profit organisations also running cafés and shops.

Download the report here.

Did you find the contents of this guide insightful? Take a look at the other editions in our Success Guide series, on topics including shops and cafés; income growth; and lettings and room hire.

Additionally, if you're interested in learning more about how you might use data to inform your strategic decisions, do look into the Heritage Dashboard we've built in collaboration with MyCake Finance. It benchmarks your organisation's data against others in your Heritage Compass cohort and across the broader heritage sector. It's a brilliant tool for you build a business model built on relevant sector data, sense check your decisions and understand how the sector is generating funds.