Civil Society has published a new podcast episode with Neil Heslop, chief executive of the Charities Aid Foundation.
In this episode, Heslop talks about his entry into the charity sector, being an advocate for disability rights and the state of philanthropy in the UK.
You can listen to the interview now below or on Spotify.
AI-generated transcript
Léa Legraien (LL): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Civil Society Podcast. I’m Léa Legraien, senior reporter for Charity Finance, the essential resource for everyone interested in the financial side of running a charity. On today’s show, I’m speaking with Neil Heslop, who joined the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) as chief executive in October 2020 from the international disability charity Leonard Cheshire, where he had served as chief executive since 2016. CAF is a leading charity that works at the centre of the giving world. It helps donors give more impactfully and charities build their resilience so they can do more of their life-changing work. I hope you find this conversation interesting and I’ll speak to you again at the end.
LL: Hi Neil, so thanks for joining us today. How are you?
NH: I’m good. I’m very well. Thank you. It’s good to be with you.
LL: Thanks for being here. So, I thought it’d be great to talk about your career to start with. After you graduated with a law degree, you spent 25 years in the telecoms industry, if that’s correct, and in 2013 you joined RNIB as managing director. Did I get that right?
NH: Yep, that’s exactly right. You’re taking me back a long way, I have to say. But yeah, so I spent 25 years in the telecoms and IT services business, both in the UK and North America. So, a couple of companies that people might have heard of, I worked for a Canadian company called Nortel Networks for five and a half years, and then I was with BT Cellnet. I was part of the team that launched O2, and I was there for a few years before moving to Cincinnati Bell in the United States. But yeah, my first sort of full-time charity job was when I joined RNIB in 2013.
LL: Ok, so what made you leave the telecom sector, then, for the charity world?
NH: Well, I guess I’d always been interested in the charity world. So, when I left university and went into telecoms, I became quite interested…So, I lost my sight at university. I became blind when I was 20, and along with a couple of friends who were making our way into our respective careers, we became conscious that unemployment for people with visual impairment was very, very high. So, the three of us started a little charity in our 20s. You know, we each put in £50 and started a charity called Blind in Business. And that started me, in my spare time, being interested in charity, which ultimately led, many years later, to making the career decision to switch out of telecoms and join the sector in an executive role.
LL: Ok, so you’ve been in the sector for over a decade now. What has changed the most since you joined it?
NH: Gosh, well, I guess it’s almost difficult to know where you start in answering that question because I mean that decade just happens to coincide with a vast amount of change in every dimension of life, really. You know, I mean, social media has become huge, and that’s had a dramatic change on society. Economically, just in those 10 years, we’ve had little things like austerity and Brexit and Covid and Ukraine, war and some of the changes that are going on now geopolitically. I guess, the whole environment in which all of us are living, whether we work in the private, public or third sectors, is both very challenging and very, very different to what it was 10 or 12 years ago.
LL: Yeah. I mean, I said over a decade, but that’s over a decade since you actually joined RNIB, but you founded that Blind in Business charity, I think it was in the early 90s, right?
NH: Yeah, that’s right. We started it in 1992, albeit as a volunteer and a trustee, I’ve been involved in the charity sector, really, for all of my adult life, but only actually made it the day job, if you like, 10 or 12 years ago.
LL: Hmm, yeah. So, you said you lost your sight at the age of 20. So, I guess you’ve faced challenges related to your disability in the workplace. So…
NH: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s certainly the case, and I guess making…So, my personal story…I was I was fully sighted until I was about 15 or 16, but I had a degenerative disease of the retina called RP, which was supposed to affect me in later life, but actually my sight started to deteriorate a little bit younger than was expected, sufficiently that I lost my sight while I was at university, so I had to make the transition from operating as a fully sighted person into being blind and learning Braille and all that kind of stuff. And I guess as well, my career has coincided with a massive, massive change in technology. And one of the helpful side effects of a lot of that technology has been to enable people with sight loss to overcome, you know, all the kinds of practical challenges that one might face in employment. So, that, you know, that’s been a huge support to me.
LL: So, you’ve always been a strong advocate for disability rights. So, you mentioned the charity that you co funded, and then you also acted as an advisor to the UK Government on the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act in the 90s, and that led to the Equalities Act 2010, so do you think that it’s incumbent on people like you to shine a light on the need for change?
NH: I think it absolutely is. I mean, I’ve been extraordinarily lucky in my career to have the opportunity to do all sorts of things in different parts of the world, both from a business point of view, from a charity point of view, in some pretty senior roles in fairly large international organisations. And I guess it is sadly too rare for someone with a disability to have some of those senior roles. So, I do feel very profoundly the responsibility to talk about a little bit and to support the next generations of individuals who are seeking to overcome those kinds of barriers in the workplace.
LL: Ok, so in October 2020, you joined the Charities Aid Foundation, CAF. So, I saw that it took over a decade for CAF to grow its annual income from about £350m to £700m. And between 2020 and 2022, CAF’s income jumped from £750m to £1bn. So, how did you achieve this?
NH: Well, I think the first thing to say it’s certainly not all down to me or down to any single individual. The most important factor in achieving the growth that we’ve seen is obviously the generosity of the donors that we have the privilege to work with. So, across Charities Aid Foundation, we work with a population of probably a couple of 100,000 individuals and maybe 5,000 operations, and it’s their resources and their generosity and their commitment to social change that has enabled us to support them in earning their generosity into social progress. And I guess, combined with our donors, obviously, here at CAF, we’ve got 750 staff and I’m incredibly lucky to be working with an extraordinary group of individuals who are very, very talented and very, very committed, really, to what it is we’re trying to do. Because, as an organisation, the Charities Aid Foundation, our primary role is to enable charities to do more of their life-changing work with lasting benefits for all of us. And the way we do that is, yes, it’s about money. And you mentioned that growth from £700m actually over the last five years, we’ve grown from distributing about £700m a year to distributing £1.2bn a year in our most recent figures. So, we’ve added an extra £100m a year in each of the last five years, and a lot of that has really been, as I say, down to the generosity and ambition of our donors and the hard work of our staff. But the role that we play isn’t really just about money. Of course, it is very important, and money is very, very important for how we contribute to the sector. But what we are also very, very interested in doing is supporting the charity sector at a systems level to become more resilient and inclusive, to help social purpose organisations really build their own resilience and sustainability so that they can do more great work. And then combining that financial and that support role. What we’re also very interested in is, how can we at a policy and an influencing level, how can we contribute to a giving ecosystem that enables civil society to thrive? So, in our work with governments and in some of our research, that’s what we’re trying to do.
LL: So, you mentioned generosity a few times. You’ve also said in the past that we can do more and that there is potential for greater giving. And CAF, I think it was yesterday, published the World Giving Report. So, it’s a perfect timing discussing generosity. So, what else can be done? How do we unlock more giving in the UK and beyond?
NH: Well, I think the overarching thing that we all talk about is how do we renew and strengthen cultural giving throughout society. And, so for us, it is a part of our individual and collective DNA to care about our neighbours, whether they be across the street or around the world, and we think the very act of giving can be a source of tremendous hope and connection and innovation, and that is rewarding at every level. It’s rewarding for individuals, it’s rewarding for communities, it’s rewarding for countries. And what we believe in is that together, if we can give more, then the purpose that we’re seeking to pursue, which is to accelerate progress in society towards a fair and sustainable future for all, we’ll get that little bit closer. So, we encourage companies, for example, to commit to 1% of pre-tax profit invested in community investment. We encourage high-net-worth individuals to think about giving 1% of their investable income on an annual basis. So, we think if all parts of society commit to that act of giving, then all of us are going to be enriched as a result.
LL: Yeah. So, you also said that no UK government has ever cracked the potential of philanthropy, and CAF has been calling for the government to work with the sector to develop a national strategy for philanthropy and charitable giving. So, how close do you think we are to having such strategy?
NH: Well, I think what I’m pleased about is that philanthropy and charitable giving would appear to be on the political agenda now in a way that perhaps it hasn’t been in recent years. And certainly, we’ve seen some really important and encouraging signs. So, the secretary of state for DCMS, Lisa Nandy, in November, committed to developing something that we really believe in, which is a place-based giving strategy. And so, I’m really interested to see those plans come to fruition. Similarly, in Treasury, earlier this year, the chief secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, set up a formal government advisory group under the chairmanship of dame Elizabeth Corley, the chair of Schroders. And I’m one of the members of that advisory group. And what Darren has asked that group to do is really to provide government with advice about how the potential of what we call the impact economy, by which we mean philanthropy, impact investing and responsible business giving. How government can encourage and nurture that part of our society in order to give more and invest in the kind of social cohesion that we all want to see? So, it was really good last week to see the chancellor announcing, in response to some of that advice, the better futures fund, which is a 10-year commitment underpinned with £500m of government money, very much targeted at vulnerable young people and really seeking to galvanise match funding of another £500m to really invest in improving lives over the next 10 years. So, I think there is more interest in government than there has been. I think just last week we had a terrific civil society summit with government and the impact economy. The government made commitments around the Covenant. And so, I think there is a serious and sincere attempt to understand the sector and to support it to deliver more in the future.
LL: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the covenant. As you said, the Civil Society Covenant launched last week. So, what’s missing from it? You said you’re pleased to see the government taking action, but is there anything that’s missing from it, do you think?
NH: Well, I think it’s a reset moment. I think what I would say is, you know, we had a terrific launch event last week, and huge kudos to you know, the Lloyds Bank Foundation and ACEVO and NCVO, as well as my role at CAF. I’m also a trustee of ACEVO and the work that ACEVO and NCVO and Lloyds have done on the Covenant I think is really, really important. I think it’s important also not to see it as some kind of magic solution. I think it’s intended to be a reset moment. It’s intended to be the government engaging in partnership in a way that perhaps previous governments had not managed. And I think the benefits, we’re already seeing some benefits in terms of tone and in terms of voices and being listened to. I think the real challenge in the next few years is seeing that shift in thinking and openness really translate into sustained and effective interventions to get the kind of outcomes that, at the end of the day, government, business and the charity sector all want to see.
LL: Yeah, but it’s still early days obviously, by I guess it’s going to be important that the government turns these words into action, but, yeah, we’ll see what happens in the coming months.
NH: I think it’s definitely important for government to do that, but I think it’s also important for all leaders in all sectors to be doing that. We have a massive responsibility to those that we serve. You know, right across the country and around the world, there are individuals and communities that are not where we want them to be, and it’s incumbent on, I think, all sectors and all organisations to redouble their efforts to change that situation.
LL: Yeah. So, you mentioned new technologies, and obviously, there’s the role of AI, but I just wanted to ask you about CAF using AI to help improve, for example, productivity, and you are yourself seeking to champion accessibility with this technology across CAF and the philanthropic landscape. So, how could AI potentially bring greater innovation to the non-profit sector, grow giving and connect funds to charity needs worldwide?
NH: Well, I think whenever I get asked questions like that, you know what feels like such a massive question, what I like to try and do is sort of break it into its constituent parts. So, I think I would respond to that both at an individual level, as an organisation, and then perhaps more generally for the sector. So for me, and as we touched on earlier, obviously, you know, I’m blind, and therefore a constant challenge is how do you get access to very, very large amounts of information very, very quickly in an accessible […] That’s a big undertaking. So just at a personal level, I use AI every day, and it is helping me discharge my role as an individual increasingly, and I think that’s just going to continue. When I think about CAF as an organisation, CAF sits at this sort of intersection between this population of donors and ecosystem of charities. And a lot of our role, as we’ve discussed, really is about how we get more money into the sector. How does that money get deployed most effectively? But if you think about it, our organisation is sat on a huge amount of data. Because of all of those hundreds of thousands of donors and hundreds of thousands of charities and millions of transactions, it’s huge amounts of information, and from that information can be drawn extraordinarily valuable insights. And so as we go through our own internal digital transformation, the role of AI in helping us accelerate bringing those insights usefully to the people that we serve, our donors and our charities is a big deal. You mentioned our World Giving Report. You know, earlier this year, we did our UK Giving Report, and what we’ve done with both of those is we’ve been sharing with the sector some of the insights that we’re drawing out of that data. And being able to do that in a new and different way, so for example, in UK Giving, we were able to share all the way down to ward and constituency level what was going on right across the country in terms of giving that we were seeing. And the manipulation of data and AI allows us to do that. So, that’s a big part of our thinking, and it’s very important, but it’s only important because of the insight that it gives us that then can then translate into the kind of actions that make a difference. And then I think so, if that’s individual, and that’s CAF, I think that third thing is we’re incredibly conscious that we at CAF, because of the nature of what we do, we sit in a very interesting and unusual position to look across the country and around the world and as the sector as a whole grapples with some really, really profound challenges, both opportunities and risks of AI, what we want to do is just to share what we’re learning openly with people in the hope that it can be of value and support to others going through their own AI journeys.
LL: Yeah, that’s a great answer to a word, a wordy question. What do you think are the biggest challenges facing CAF at the moment?
NH: The biggest challenges facing CAF. So, when we look into the charity world, those that we serve are dealing with an extraordinarily difficult combination. I often talk about it as the triple whammy, by which I mean, you know, demand’s going through the roof, costs are spiralling and income’s massively under pressure. And then, if I look into the donor world, so those donor communities that we serve, there are massive economic changes going on, both in the economy, in wealth creation and distribution. There’s a lot of political stuff going on. So, I guess the way I think about how we as an organisation stay true to our overriding purpose and impact is by constantly saying: ‘How are we supporting our staff to be their brilliant best at work in order to provide more and higher-quality service, both to donors and charities?’ And of course, you know that’s within a resource-constrained environment. You know we have all of those problems everyone else has in terms of finance and, you know, the need for investment in technology, the need for investment in staff and so forth. So, it’s a constant juggling act. And I guess, I think all or any CEO in a major organisation can do, or even in small organisations, is constantly be asking themselves: ‘How is what I am doing and what we are doing contributing to the end outcome for the people that we serve? How do we afford the most talented people in our organisation, and then, how do we create the environment in which they can all be their brilliant best?’ And I tried to keep it to that level, because I think it’s very easy to become overwhelmed and daunted by some of the challenges of 2025
LL: Yeah, ok. So, what about your organisation’s priorities for the year ahead?
NH: There are three main parts of our organisation. So, there’s our Charitable Aid Foundation in the UK, there’s our Charitable Aid Foundations in North America, and then there is our trading subsidiaries, so CAF Bank and CFSL, who are supporting charities by providing financial charity services. So, each of those three parts of our organisation has different but very related challenges. And I guess we have priorities across all of them, which are about how can together we be more than the sum of the individual parts. You know, we’re constantly seeking to deliver better service to donors in order that we can expand both the population of donors that we work with and, crucially, the giving that those donors are pumping into the sector. In order to do that, our investments in technology are hugely important, needing to modernise. And that’s a constant challenge as well.
LL: And my last question, so CAF traces its roots back to 1924 when it was established as the Charities Department by the National Council of Social Service, which is now the NCVO. So, do you think that CAF will still be around in 2125 – that’s in 100 years’ time?
NH: Gosh, I think it will be. I certainly hope it will be. I know I won’t be. Listen, it’s the greatest privilege to have the role that I have to be seeking to build on the extraordinary work of thousands and thousands of people over those 100 years. And that’s both an enormous privilege, but it’s also an enormous responsibility. And for the time that I’m in this role, my responsibility is to make sure that we’re doing the right thing for our donors and charities, or for the people who work here, and that we’re collaborating as effectively as we can do right across the sector, in order that we make sure that when I pass the baton on to my successor, they have a stronger and more impactful organisation for them to pass on to. I don’t know how many generations of CEO there will be in the next 100 years, but there’ll be a few. But I think when your purpose is timeless and enduring, as I believe ours is, you know, we talk about speaking to accelerate progress in society towards a fair and sustainable future for all. Well, I don’t think that work is going to be done or finished in the next 100 years. And you know, Charities Aid Foundation, you know, the clue’s in the name, it’s a foundation that exists to aid charities and that’s all charities everywhere. And while I’m extraordinarily proud of what we do currently, you know, we’re very humble about it. In the greater scheme of things, of what’s going on in the world, our contribution is a tiny one. And of course, we want it in the next 100 years to become a bigger one.
LL: Ok. Well, thank you, that was a really interesting conversation. Is there anything else which we haven’t touched on that you were hoping to discuss?
NH: Well, we haven’t talked about anything that I thought we were going to talk about, but we have talked about lots of other things, so, it’s been great. Thank you for your time.
LL: Thank you for listening to my chat with Neil. I hope you enjoyed it. Please like and subscribe to the Civil Society podcast and look out for another episode in the coming weeks. Stay safe!
Editor’s note: This interview was conducted on 22 July
