Funding Impact - Leading a Charity in a Competitive World

Can a charity teach business leaders about financial management?

Most people assume charities and commercial businesses operate in completely different worlds.

In reality, the financial challenges are remarkably similar.

Whether you're leading a global conservation charity or a growing SME, you're still responsible for generating sustainable income, managing cash flow, allocating limited resources, investing in people and technology, planning for the future and making difficult strategic decisions.

In this episode of The Fractional CFO Show, Adam Cooper sits down with Paul Cox, CEO of Shark Trust, to explore what it really takes to lead a purpose-driven organisation in an increasingly competitive funding environment.

Although Shark Trust exists to protect sharks and rays around the world, this conversation is about far more than conservation.

It's about financial leadership, strategic planning, resource allocation, operational efficiency and making better decisions under pressure.

Paul shares his fascinating journey from investment banking to marine biology before ultimately becoming CEO of one of the world's leading shark conservation charities. Along the way, he explains why running a charity demands the same commercial discipline as running any successful organisation.

One of the biggest misconceptions Paul challenges is the belief that charities somehow operate outside the normal realities of business.

As he explains during the episode:

"We still have bills to pay. We still have people to pay. We still have offices, technology and operating costs. The difference is that when we generate a surplus, we invest it back into creating more impact."

That single insight forms the foundation for a fascinating discussion covering everything from fundraising strategy and financial planning through to artificial intelligence and measuring return on investment.

What you'll learn in this episode

During the conversation we discuss:

•  Why charities require exactly the same financial discipline as commercial organisations. 
•  The financial realities of leading a purpose-driven organisation. 
•  Cash flow management and maintaining financial resilience during uncertain economic conditions. 
•  Why unrestricted funding is often significantly more valuable than restricted grant funding. 
•  Long-term financial planning when projects and funding commitments span several years. 
•  Building diversified income streams to improve organisational resilience. 
•  Making strategic investment decisions when resources are limited. 
•  Balancing investment in people, technology and projects. 
•  Creating operational efficiency without compromising organisational purpose. 
•  Improving productivity through smarter systems and processes. 
•  The growing impact of Artificial Intelligence on fundraising, grant applications and organisational effectiveness. 
•  Responsible AI adoption and balancing technological innovation with environmental responsibility. 
•  Measuring return on investment when success isn't measured through profit. 
•  Leadership lessons from running an international conservation organisation. 
•  Why collaboration often creates greater long-term impact than competition. 

Running a charity still requires great financial leadership

One of the strongest themes throughout the conversation is that good financial management isn't about maximising profit.

It's about maximising impact.

Whether you're a founder, CEO, finance director or charity leader, the same questions continually arise:

•  How do you make the best use of finite resources? 
•  How do you prioritise investment opportunities? 
•  How do you forecast in uncertain markets? 
•  How do you improve productivity without continually increasing costs? 
•  How do you balance today's pressures with tomorrow's ambitions? 

Paul explains how Shark Trust approaches these challenges through careful strategic planning, disciplined financial management and a clear focus on long-term outcomes.

For anyone involved in business growth, financial planning, strategic finance or organisational leadership, there are valuable lessons throughout this discussion.

AI, productivity and doing more with less

Artificial Intelligence has become one of the biggest talking points for organisations of every size.

Rather than viewing AI as a replacement for people, Paul explains how Shark Trust is exploring ways to use it responsibly to increase productivity and free up time for higher-value work.

The conversation explores:

•  Using AI to improve operational efficiency. 
•  Supporting research and knowledge gathering. 
•  Improving communication and content creation. 
•  Enhancing fundraising processes. 
•  Managing AI responsibly within a mission-led organisation. 
•  Balancing innovation with environmental responsibility. 

It's a thoughtful discussion that moves beyond the headlines to consider how leaders can embrace technology while remaining focused on people and purpose.

Measuring success beyond profit

For most businesses, success is relatively easy to measure.

Revenue.

Profit.

Cash generation.

Return on investment.

For a conservation charity, success can take decades to become visible.

Paul discusses how Shark Trust thinks about measuring impact, demonstrating value to funders and making investment decisions where the return may not become visible for many years.

It's a fascinating perspective that challenges traditional thinking around KPIs and performance measurement.

About Paul Cox

Paul Cox has led Shark Trust since 2015.

His career has taken him from investment banking through to marine biology before ultimately becoming CEO of one of the world's leading shark conservation charities.

Today, he leads an organisation focused on protecting sharks and rays through science, conservation, education, policy and international collaboration.

Alongside his passion for marine conservation, Paul has developed extensive experience in organisational leadership, fundraising strategy, financial management and building sustainable organisations capable of creating lasting impact.

About The Fractional CFO Show

The Fractional CFO Show explores the financial decisions behind successful organisations.

Hosted by Adam Cooper, Founder of ACC Finance Solutions, each episode features honest conversations with founders, CEOs and business leaders about financial leadership, business growth, strategic planning, operational challenges and the lessons they've learned along the way.

Whether you're scaling a founder-led business, building a leadership team or simply looking to make better financial decisions, each episode is designed to provide practical insights that can be applied immediately.

Listen now

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to The Fractional CFO Show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

If you'd like to support the show, leaving a rating or review really helps more founders, CEOs, finance leaders and business owners discover these conversations.

To learn more about ACC Finance Solutions and how a Fractional CFO can help improve your financial visibility, strategic decision-making and business growth, visit:

https://accfinancesolutions.com

Transcript

Adam (00:01.94)
Okay, so today I'm joined by Paul Cox, the CEO of The Shark Trust, which is one of the world's leading shark conservation charities, but the conversation today isn't actually about sharks. We're going to be looking behind the scenes at the realities of running and growing a purpose-led organization and the financial implications of doing that, from managing restricted funding and planning to deciding where to invest resources.

So yeah, Paul, welcome to the Fractional C F O Show. How are you doing today?

Paul Cox (00:33.853)
Very good, thanks Adam.

Adam (00:36.416)
Excellent, excellent. Well thank you very much for joining. And before we dive into into the finances and into into our talking points, can you tell us a little bit about your journey and how you ended up leading Shark Trust?

Paul Cox (00:49.149)
Okay, so perhaps an unusual journey. started my, well, I started my working life eventually when I was about 20.

22 years old and accidentally fell into a job in banking. I ended up in kind of the investment banking division of HSBC. And I did that for a few years. And then I kind of started to think, don't know, this isn't really something I want to do for the rest of my life. I had a bit of a lion's tame a moment and decided I wanted to be a marine biologist. Partly kind of influenced by, you know, David Attermer, obviously, and the amazing wildlife documentaries that I kind of sat through in my evenings off work.

from other experiences, bit of diving, bit less than the other. So I ended up kind of taking my last pay packet from the bank, doing a bit of traveling and then coming down to moving down to Plymouth and doing a degree in marine biology, which I started at the age of 30. And then while I was doing that, kind of thought, I'm working, I'm studying alongside these very bright 18 year olds who are going to get ahead of me if I'm not careful. I started trying to get some voluntary

work and get myself my career moving. I ended up at the National Marine Aquarium which is based down here in Plymouth. I worked there whilst I was studying and then when I finished studying I was lucky enough to get a job there in the education department. I worked and ended up working at the National Marine Aquarium for about

14 years, something like that in a variety of roles all the way from kind of working through the education department. I then kind of took over the wider research role and conservation, ended up director of conservation and also very heavily involved in kind of the business side of it because the National Recurring operates as a charity, but also, you know, a business that turned over at that point in time about three and a half million. So I got very interested in kind of the

Paul Cox (02:40.635)
both the conservation side of the charity, also in how you operate a charity financially and how you can kind of use.

various different means to kind of bring money into the charity and so then an opportunity came up to lead the Sharp Trust in end of 2014 and I just thought this is an opportunity to do something a bit different, to do something a bit more direct in terms of the conservation work that we're doing and the challenges that the Trust had were really based around generating

unrestricted income and so I thought maybe I can bring something from my from my background both in in the kind of banking sector but also more importantly from my time at the the aquarium running that charity very much as a business so yeah so I got the opportunity to start leading the trust in in 2015 and I've been here for 11 years now.

Adam (03:34.112)
Interesting. And I hadn't realized about the investment banking, so that's really interesting that you've come from that world, albeit many, many years ago, but I'm sure it it it obviously gives you a good foundation in terms of the financial responsibilities and the business side of things. What with that in mind, what is it that tends to surprise people, I guess, into and maybe surprised yourself about running a charity from a business perspective? What were what are some of the things that you wouldn't necessarily have expected before you did that?

Paul Cox (03:41.435)
Yeah.

Paul Cox (04:05.339)
I guess, I mean, I think there's a kind of, there's a.

Sometimes in the world, there's a general sense that charities are kind of different to businesses. And they're not, you know, we still have bills to pay, we have people to pay, we have services that we need to provide. And we have, you know, we have all of the other costs that businesses has offices, rent, pensions, it, all of that stuff, we have to support. And I think, you know, the kind of tends to be a kind of mindset of like, we should get everything for free because we're a charity.

And you know that just isn't the case and particularly one of my particular kind of gripes is around paying

staff, proper wages, because there's this sense that because we're doing it for a purpose, because we're doing it for a cause, we should be doing it for nothing or a heavy discount. But if you want good people, if you want good outputs, then you need to be there and try and pay people proper wages. there's a whole kind of mindset sometimes around charities that we're not operating as businesses, but we We absolutely have to follow the same processes. It's just that at the end of the day,

Adam (05:12.78)
Mm-hmm.

Paul Cox (05:17.983)
we don't make profits to distribute to ourselves or to shareholders or whatever, know, if we generate surpluses we invest it back into the cause to drive more impact.

Adam (05:30.881)
Hm. Interesting. A and do you find with with that in mind that you you find yourself thinking of yourself more like a CEO or more like a fundraiser or a CFO, perhaps, with with the tone of this podcast in mind. Is it what where how do you think of yourself from a business standpoint within the charity environment?

Paul Cox (05:54.077)
Yeah, that's an interesting question. It's, I mean, it's because we're relatively small as a charity as well. So we're you know, we're kind of in the sort of medium charity region turnover turnover around three quarters of a million. So we don't we don't have huge, you know, a huge team and we don't have that kind of delegation of responsibility across across broad teams. So I very much wear kind of different hats on different days.

I think probably of those things, know, the fundraiser bit is really, really important, is really key. So whilst everyone here is ultimately...

has a part to play in the fundraising. mean, I guess I'm the person that wakes up every morning or can't sleep at night thinking about where the money's coming from and how we're gonna generate funds for the charity. So I think as a fundraiser, that's kind of a really, really massive and important part of the business. But then all the funds that come in have to be managed properly, we have to account for them, we have a...

all our processes that we have to deliver. So there's a bit of a CFO kind of element to it as well. And then, you know, as the person ultimately responsible to the board, then I'm also GPSEC. So I'm kind of, yeah, I'm kind of balancing things around and definitely trying to kind of them into different parts of the week, different parts of the day to fulfil all of those roles whilst trying to, you know, delegate as much as possible to the rest of the people in the team.

Adam (07:32.565)
No, that's interesting. And and I guess you mentioned before, when we spoke previously about how s discretionary spending and, you know, raising funds has gotten harder, obviously, in the in the current climate. how has that had to affect the way that you operate the charity? Is there anything that you've had to change as a result of that given the tougher economic conditions?

Paul Cox (07:46.237)
Yeah.

Paul Cox (07:55.439)
Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting. mean, part of the strategy we have to take is to diversify where money's coming from, We're lucky in that sense is that we can kind of look at a variety of different ways of bringing money in. And so in most times, if one area of our fundraising is struggling, another one might be stronger so they can kind of support each other.

Currently we're finding, so going back a few years when I first started, there was a heavy dependence on what we call restrictive funding. So this is grant funding given to us to fulfill a particular project with milestones and deliverables and a report at the end. And all of the money has to be wrapped up in a pot and only spent on that project. What the board wanted me to do was...

diversify that and bring in more unrestricted funding, which is essentially our own money that we can have the discretion to use how we see fit, that we can be much more, you do end up being kind of much more efficient with it because it's your own money. But also it allows us to kind of seed new projects, it allows us to go off on tangents perhaps a little bit that grant funding wouldn't allow us to do. So we've kind of got that balance between the two, but what we've found in the last couple of years is that there's

like there's real squeeze on grant funding for a number of reasons. One being that a lot of it is being redirected. we particularly what happened last year, the year before with Doge in the US where they moved a lot of money out of aid funding. You're starting to see some of the philanthropy kind of maybe filling the gaps there. And then there's a kind of a knock on effect.

environment and particularly marine ocean environment stuff are always a tiny slice of the big pot of discretionary funding. And so we've seen that that's become more difficult to get hold of. And the other thing with

Paul Cox (09:55.453)
grant funding and grant bids is that AI is really affecting the sector. So you've got more organizations identifying more opportunities and then being able to apply for more because using AI tools to write the applications. So it's kind of speeding up that process and creating a lot more competition for the almost shrinking resources that there are. So that area of funding has become particularly challenging.

And then on the flip side of that, we, it's not been too bad, but you can, we can kind of see where the, you know, where lot of our other funding maybe comes from individuals, households, giving, you know, a little bit of that discretionary spending that they've got at end of each month to a charitable cause as things have tightened up with cost of living. Then, you know, if you're, if you were sitting there going through your

your monthly accounts and your direct debits. You're like, okay, water bill, we've got to pay that. Council tax, we've got to pay that. Charitable donation, okay, that one can go, much as I want to. So I think we're seeing a little bit of a squeeze there through cost of living pressures just on sort of numerous, if you like, smaller decisions, but which add up to.

Quite a lot. the funding environment has got tighter and so we have to be bit more imaginative, we have to try new things, we have to, so at the moment we're doing a lot of events which you're trying to kind of pull more people into events which generates a bit of income. But also in terms of our operations and how we're operating things internally.

AI is a conversation that we're having about how we can take some of the tasks that are happening within the team and we can automate some of those using, know, agentic tools so that we can reduce the need for bringing more people into it in order to continue to do more and more. So trying to kind of keep costs down, keep productivity up.

Paul Cox (11:52.861)
whilst still trying to generate more money. are kind of the three, I guess, the balls that we're juggling the whole time. And yeah, the AI conversation is really interesting as well because as an environment charity, you've also got to be very conscious of, you know, the water use and the carbon that it's generating. So you've got to kind of keep that balance in mind as well. So, yeah, all in all, it's fun and games, but, you know, it's what keeps us.

keeps us going. we're, you know, I think sometimes when it's difficult, we're very lucky to have a very clear cause that we, you know, we can focus ourselves on. And if you're just like, it's becoming difficult, you've got that cause that kind of keeps you motivated.

Adam (12:36.693)
Yeah, no, that's that's fascinating and you covered a lot there and a lot that I want to dive into. yeah, y you mentioned let's start at the sort of income level and the restricted and unrestricted funding. And obviously, you know, the something I hadn't realised not knowing the world like you do is obviously you know, the grants and having that restriction on how you use the grants for the projects and having those milestones and reporting and and then how that has been impacted by by different factors.

Is fascinating. how how because obviously those projects are longer-term projects, and you know, it's one of the things that we talk about a bit on this on this pod is is financial planning and longer term planning, you know, budgets, rolling forecasts, three-year plans, five-year plans. How how much does that come into your thinking around the grants when that restricted funding landscape is changing so much? Is it does that that must make planning quite

Difficult I would imagine at the top line.

Paul Cox (13:38.619)
Yeah, it does. you're, guess on the one hand restricted, we don't think of it in terms of our kind of cash reserve in terms of a cashflow. It's kind of sits in separate pots. But on the other hand, we aim for restricted funding to account for around about 50 % of our salary bill. And so our salary bill is our biggest outgoing by a long, long way.

So we are reliant on that restricted funding coming in and being there because we want to maintain the staffing. So it's part of your long-term planning, but from a financial perspective, it sits separately. But then on the flip side of that, you might...

sign a grant contract which would be an amount per year for five years which gives you that ability to really plan ahead and develop these longer term projects knowing that each year you're going to get an amount coming from pay or may not be invested. It's going to come in predictably.

to cover those costs. So what we do with restricted planning is we look at the beginning of each year, over two years.

Adam (15:04.119)
Sorry Paul, can I just stop you there for one second? It's gone quite echo quite dull. I can't hear you very well. Could you just speak a little bit closer to the mic? Perfect Yeah, that's better. Sorry, could you just go back maybe ten seconds and talk you're talking about, you know, the the restricted funding, your yeah, if just maybe just go back sort of t ten, twenty seconds.

Paul Cox (15:10.223)
Okay. Yeah, I'll just move it in a bit. How's that? Yeah, okay.

Paul Cox (15:22.844)
Yeah.

Paul Cox (15:27.504)
Yeah, so.

In looking at restricted funding in terms of planning, will maybe look at each year on a sort of two year cycle what our contracts that we already have in place. So, you we know that we're to get this much coming in over the next couple of years. And then we'd put a target in and above that for new grant funding. so and then we're kind of everyone's got a responsibility to write grant bids and try and bring more funding in. And then if we miss those targets, then

the core reserve has to come in and kind of pick up the slack. So it's a matter of kind of using that, I should say funding to as much as possible to kind of cover the core costs that we have and just then balancing what we know is coming against what we aim to get. just, you just kind of get a sense for over time of how likely you are to achieve those new additional pots of money.

Adam (16:27.711)
Interesting. A and you s you mentioned there about unrestricted and restricted funding and the need to be more efficient, I guess, you know, when when things are less certain and y you touched on AI and sort of the way that you're able to become more efficient. How yeah, obviously every business has finite resources. You particularly where you're you know, you're you're operating in in such a tough times, how how do you approach sort of where to look for those efficient?

Paul Cox (16:48.359)
Yeah.

Adam (16:57.615)
efficiencies, where to focus. Is is it is it just naturally stuff that comes to you, or is there a plan around that and around how you focus on driving efficiencies, yeah, mindful of the fact that you're in a in a purpose led business that you don't really want to become too efficient, I guess?

Paul Cox (17:12.733)
Hmm. I mean, there's an interesting point and I have to be careful that I'm not taking a pistol to my right toe. When I say this, there's a there's a there's a thing about restricted funding, which, which is kind of anti efficiency in some ways, because you're you're in many, in many cases, you're being given a certain amount of money to deliver a certain amount of work which you which you

estimate project, whatever you want to call it at the beginning of the project, project, but at the end of the project, it's all got to be spent. So so that doesn't necessarily

mean that you would target efficiencies within that spending because it was like well we've said we're going to spend that so we're to have to spend it whereas when you look at your unrestricted funding that's where you kind of you know you can you're more looking at it and saying right how do i minimize the how do i stretch this money as far as possible into the future and we are

We're very lucky to have connected with a few funders who recognise that and actually do grant unrestricted funding now because they recognise that there's efficiency that you get from unrestricted funding because the motivation within the organisations to use that money as wisely as possible to keep it going as long as possible into the future. That's a really interesting dichotomy and it's something I think more and more funders are coming around to that way of thinking that if you work with an organisation that you trust what they do and you

trust their planning process and you trust their accounting processes then just give them the money and let them get on with it and you probably get more bang for your buck. But yeah in terms of your original question in terms of how you drive efficiency it's mean it's yeah it's quite tricky because as I said before you know our staffing bill is the majority of our cost and there's

Paul Cox (19:04.101)
apart from not employing people, there's not much that you can do with that. So in other areas of cost, we kind of look at, know, are we getting the best value out of this? Can we change contracts on some of the things like telephone or IT?

you know these things that you kind of we pay we spend a lot of money on kind of IT rolling contracts for CRMs and accountancy software and all sorts of other you know mail chimp and kind of things like that that you're just constantly having to shell out money for so looking at all of those and are we using those as effectively as we can do are there alternatives out there that we could bounce from but yeah in terms of the efficiency the main part of it is looking at that as I've said whether there's

whether it's way of making ourselves more productive by using things like AI tools which could kind of help deliver more for the same amount of people kind of thing.

Adam (20:00.462)
Mm.

No, and that brings us nicely onto AI because you you've mentioned that a couple of times and yeah, I'm I'm really interested in how you know it's such a hot topic amongst every every person I have on this pod, frankly. And and obviously every business and organization uses it in slightly different ways. That's one of the the things at the moment of being at the cutting edge of such a a transformative t piece of technology. How how is it affecting you? You mentioned about writing grants, but you know, is that the sole way that you're using

Paul Cox (20:11.899)
Yeah.

Paul Cox (20:36.669)
Yeah, there's quite a few. I think we preface any of this with the, you know, we're being quite cautious about its use because we not only in terms of kind of data and not wanting to let data to leak out of the organisation, but also our kind of IP, you know, like what we do and how we do it and the information we have, we know networks we're involved in, that's a lot of work on internet. so we

We've been working through an enterprise model that we are essentially channeling everyone's use of AI through one person in the team who effectively manages our intern, who is our AI model. And so we then ask it to do a stuff and we recognize him as he is a very productive.

intern who's got a really broad scope who can almost complete any task but his work needs to be checked. You have to keep an eye on him because he can get a bit carried away and he can be a bit of a people pleaser. we, but with that kind of caution in mind and we're still reviewing that because you know things move on and we need to look at other options out there but with that in mind we're using it for quite a few different things. I mean like in the finance function it's being

without even recognising it a lot of the time, like your expenses, we're no longer typing up an expenses form in an Excel document at the end of each month, you're taking a photo and your receipts going into the Xero software just like that. But we're also able to use it for, for example, if you just, you wanted to do...

a bit of research around a topic around a fishery around a species, whatever. If you want to kind of gather what information is out there, put in those kind of criteria that I only want peer reviewed, don't want respectable sources and so on. You can save yourself a whole bunch of time on that. I mean, for example, I had a couple of weeks ago, well, about a month ago in early June.

Paul Cox (22:46.677)
there was a press story came out about a great white shark which was which had been filmed in the Mediterranean so obviously all the media are asking questions about what's going on here, why is the great whites in the Mediterranean, should holidaymakers be concerned etc etc etc so I'm able to you know very quickly say to chat gpt or other models are available you know give me talking points give me you know what research is there on their occurrence

on their history, on the conservation status of great white sharks in the Rhodes Australian, pull it out.

play around with it, and paste, tidy it up, make it look like my language, and then put out comment to lot of press sources all in about 20 minutes rather than the questions start coming in and I have to go away and find out the answers. We're also using it for translation work, so we do a lot of stuff overseas in different languages, so we're able to use it as a first line in the translation process, particularly if you've got a big, weighty policy document in another language, you can feed it in and say, can you pick out the bit that's about sharks and marine protected areas, for example.

and then you can just highlight the bit that you need to know about. A of coding, mainly with kind of, we've got this piece of code that's not working, put it in and let it fix it for you.

for the website, so that's quite a good one. As technical experts, we don't always talk in the language that normal people understand, so being able to kind of create something and then throw it in and say, does this work for an audience with a reading age of 12, and it'll come out with suggestions or it'll edit it. So yeah, there's a variety of different ways that we can use just to kind cut back on the amount of time that we're spending on day-to-day tasks.

Adam (24:31.074)
Mm.

Adam (24:36.513)
No, that's really interesting. And something that gets lost definitely in the conversation that we hear about, you know, regarding AI taking taking jobs and, you know, cannibalizing opportunities for for youngsters, which is all obviously true, but the fact that you're a charity and having to work with limited resources means that you can achieve much more in terms of your purpose through the use of these tools. And I love the way you think about it as an intern, with the requirement of checking. that that's so important. And what you said about the environmental

Paul Cox (25:01.308)
Yeah.

Adam (25:06.497)
impact and and needing to so balance the use of it which we as we just said is is so valuable for an organisation like yours with the environmental impact. Can you give us some tangible examples of how you you do think about that?

Paul Cox (25:23.133)
Mainly just by reducing it, by only using it for certain things. Somebody we had a meeting about this just then, someone was saying, there's a lot of concern about AI and its power, the power it uses. But then we all think nothing of 20 people sitting on a Zoom meeting for an hour with their video feeds on. And it's kind of like, have to kind of think holistically across the board about all the things that are using up power, not just this thing that everyone's pointing out and looking at at the moment.

That's not to downplay the impact of AI. And so think it's a matter of using it.

wisely rather than just kind of, know, anything you want to do, just throw it into AI. I think it's, it needs to be, you need to get to a point where you say, this is the thing we can use it for. And I think that's one of the next stage that we want to get to is, kind of creating agents so that we're not just using it as a glorified search engine, but actually going right. Okay. We need, we need to build an agent for the finance function that does that, that knows what it's looking for each week. You feed stuff into it it feeds exactly what you want out of the other end. So you're kind of, you're kind of.

making that process efficient, as efficient as possible, and just really kind of focusing it on tasks, on things, on processes that you need to do. So I think that's kind of something that we're looking at. And one of the ones, you know, I think a lot of AI goes into making really fancy looking infographics and visuals and stuff like that.

You know, you don't need to be doing that. So I think some stuff like that where you just like, no, unless there's a real need to do that, we don't need to do that. Other use of course is podcast editing, which I didn't mention. Yeah, very, very good for that.

Adam (26:58.827)
Ha ha ha.

Adam (27:05.163)
I I like it. I like Yeah. Yeah Yeah, no for sure.

No, that that's really interesting. And actually brings me on to sort of like a lot the s second to last topic I wanted to talk to you about, which is about, you know, how you measure return on investment investments, whether that be through sort of snazzy charts designed by AI or not. What what what are the sort of metrics, the measurements that matter most to you as the CEO of a of a charity, to sort of track return on investment for yourself, for the organization, for the donors, for the funders? What could you give us a sort of a flag?

Paul Cox (27:19.515)
Yeah.

Paul Cox (27:44.941)
It's very tricky in the world that we're in. you know, if we if we look at what are the what is the change we're seeking to effect. So, you know, one of my trustees always used to say, can you give me a shark saved per pound ratio? And so, you know, we'd know if we invested 100,000 pound, we get this many sharks out. The work that we do is more about

preventing harm that hasn't happened yet to shark populations. So, you know, it's all about fisheries management. So if you go through a lot of work and you generate an outcome, which is a new catch limit or a prohibition on catching a particular shark species.

your return on investment very difficult to quantify. we have this impact clarity, being able to clearly say because we spent this money, this is the impact that we've got and that's the outcome of it. It requires a theory of change model where you say, well, these are the inputs that we put in, these are the processes it goes through and these are the outcomes of it. And at every stage of that, you've got a whole bunch of assumptions

that you have to kind of essentially elucidate what your assumptions are at each stage in that model that kind of says somewhere down the line, doing this will lead to this, the outcome, which is, know.

For us, it's preventing extinctions and returning sharks to healthy population status and improving the conservation status of species. These are things that happen over 50, 60 years. So very, very difficult.

Paul Cox (29:30.621)
to kind of to really put a value on the work that we do. So yeah, we kind of use these kind of proxies, I guess you would call them for the kind of achievements and then we'd set out, you know, from where we are, what we're trying to get to over a period of time. And that's going to cost us mainly, as I said earlier, mainly it's about the amount of time that goes into it and that has a staff cost that you can then then it becomes a kind of a metric.

So I'm not really sure I gave you a proper answer there, if you read our annual reports, you'll probably come to the same conclusion. It's very, very difficult. But it's a process that we're constantly, and that's something that funders are more and more wanting from us. So something we've got to do, be better at.

Adam (30:03.563)
No, that was good.

Adam (30:14.901)
Absolutely. Absolutely. No, that's fascinating. really interesting to hear it from that perspective 'cause obviously we talk about measurements and metrics and key performance indicators, etcetera, like within the business and commercial world, but hearing about it from a charity perspective and particularly where you've got that long term outlook of fifty, sixty years, you know, w how do you do that and how do you quantify it? So that's really interesting.

Paul Cox (30:28.241)
Yeah.

Paul Cox (30:35.687)
Yeah, I always say that our long time goal should be that we don't exist anymore. You know, like that's really very funny. If you do yourself out of existence, you've done your job.

Adam (30:40.299)
Yeah.

Done your job, yeah, exactly. really good, really good. Well listen, we we've pretty much come to the end of the pod. We always finish with a section I call the business book bonus section. And so that's is there a book or a podcast or resource that's really influenced your thinking that you'd recommend to the audience? So is there anything that you'd like to recommend today, Paul?

Paul Cox (31:04.879)
Yeah, I mean, I'd be surprised if people haven't heard of him, but there's a guy called Adam Grant, who is kind of a business psychologist, I guess that'd my simplified way of describing what he does. And I'm a bit of a fan boy, I really love everything he does. He's done some really great podcasts, he does a couple of really good podcasts with a CEO. But the book that got me really into him is called Give and Take. And

It's essentially a study on kind of different behaviors in businesses. And there's people who are just people who focus on taking it. So, know, in any of the negotiation, it's always like, how can I get the most out of this? It was all for me. It's all for me. Some people who are, who are, are matchers who are basically, you know, as long as they come out, getting something and the other person gets something, then they're, they're okay. And then there's people who give. you go into any business transaction, just like, can I, what can I give into this process?

And the basic treatise is that he goes through this process. in the modern world where networks are far more distributed and so reputation, you can't get away with doing something, screwing someone over here because it's going to come back to you later on. So that the...

principle is that people who go into business dealings with a giving mentality tend to do better these days. And so yeah, it's a really interesting book. lot of great case studies in it, really well worth a read and then kind of use that to jump off into the rest of his work, which I think is just fascinating.

Adam (32:38.475)
very good. We haven't actually had Adam Grant before on the pod, so that's a that's a great one. give and take. We'll put a link to that in the in the show notes. So thank you very much. And and thank you very much for your time. Is there anything that we've missed? where can people find out more about what you're doing, what Shark Shark Trust is doing?

Paul Cox (32:54.373)
Yeah, I mean, I welcome anyone who's interested in the work that we're doing or in sharks in particular, take a look at our website, take a look at our own podcast series. It's called the shark trust podcast. It's on all the podcast channels. And just, you know, if you get interested in what we're doing, connect with us, you know, help us out, find ways of being part of the cause because it's something that's, it's pretty niche what we do. And so if we find people that are into it, then we try and work with them as much as possible. So yeah, check us out and see if you are

fascinated by the world of sharks.

Adam (33:27.49)
Amazing. Well, thank you very much, Paul. really appreciate your insights and your perspective and your time. Thank you very much.

Paul Cox (33:33.351)
Thank you.