John Low, chief executive of the Charities Aid Foundation, tells Tania Mason why CAF is as ubiquitous - and necessary - as the heavens.

If the most important task of a chief executive is to be an ambassador for their organisation and champion it at every opportunity, then John Low is doing a superb job at Charities Aid Foundation. Ever since Low announced that he had got the job, he has used the podium at sector events to espouse the benefit that CAF brings to charities and the potential it has to do more. How well his evangelising goes down with his audiences is another subject, but you can’t fault him for trying.

He carries this well-rehearsed script seamlessly through to interviews about his role, too. He talks enthusiastically about the myriad CAF products that have never been properly marketed and thus not properly exploited: for instance, charity vouchers (“at Christmas, give your 10-year-old a Playstation, a Barbie doll and a CAF voucher to spend with any charity they want – what a fantastic idea”); the grouping of investments that lets donors support groups of charities within the same cause; and the legacy programme that allows donors to leave money to CAF in their will and provide an ‘expression of wishes’ letter that they can change at any time. He heaps praise upon Venturesome, CAF’s venture philanthropy model, as “an experiment that is clearly adding value”. He is flush with stories of wealthy individuals who have entrusted their fortunes to CAF to donate effectively on their behalf. And he refers constantly to the benefit CAF confers on small charities – he opened his first CAF current account for his local Baptist church in the early 90s when he was treasurer there. “CAF does more for small and medium-sized charities in terms of benefits than I suspect any other organisation does. The value it added to the sector last year was £20m, through lower fees, better interest rates and so on...it helps small charities get on with the business of their cause.”

'A bit like the sky'

It even seems as though the organisation has acquired something of a mystical quality for the former RNID chief: “I wonder if CAF isn’t a bit like the sky,” Low muses. “It sits there over the sector, it’s there all the time, people look up but don’t see it. It just sort of floats there, it’s not exactly invisible, but nobody really values what it does. Yet if the sky wasn’t there, we’d be in big trouble.”

But listen a bit longer and it isn’t long before he starts in on all the clouds blighting the perfect blueness. It’s a list at least as long as all the good things, and his frustration at times is palpable. He confesses, for instance, that a for-profit business wouldn’t bother running CAF, because its extraordinarily complex business processes and huge IT challenges mean that returns are simply not high enough to warrant bothering. “Coping with those complexities is the charitable bit, if you like.” Its compliance, audit, and risk management controls are so strong that it is “almost too careful”. Some of its products are “past their sell-by date” (though he won’t say which), and too many of its various services are disconnected, putting economies of scale beyond grasp. What synergies do exist are not being fully exploited. Its research “has become a bit of a treadmill”. Parts of the international side need to be “continually bootstrapped up”. And perceptions of CAF among the sector don’t help either. “It’s impenetrable, almost,” he admits.

These are precisely the kinds of problems that the infamous strategic review was supposed to address. But it turns out that the review quietly finished several weeks ago, and although some of its recommendations are already being implemented, according to Low it failed to paint any clear picture of CAF in the future.

As a result, extracting any detail about future plans for CAF proves difficult. Low claims many decisions have still not been made. He has already asserted that the trustees have yet to decide whether to keep CAF as an “integrated organisation”, continuing to provide both donor services and banking services, or to break it up. But he is clear about one thing – there will be some pain to swallow, and a restructuring of management and other functions. He insists, however, that most staff are ready to embrace change.