CAP Debt Help

Today, there are people in your community whose lives are being devastated as a result of debt. They may be struggling to feed their families, suicidal, depressed and alone.

Partnering CAP’s service with the compassion of the local church is changing thousands of lives every year.

Chat to your local partnership manager

What CAP provides

CAP provides your church with all the training and support you need to offer a professional debt counselling tool that’s proven to help some of the most vulnerable in society. We were named Debt Advice Provider of the Year 2015 in the finance industry awards.

We do all the debt counselling centrally, including insolvency options, allowing your Centre Manager to focus on supporting clients spiritually and practically. This means your church won’t have to worry about all the financial and legal knowledge, as our highly trained caseworkers at head office will take care of all that for you.

Debt counselling is now highly regulated, requiring authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). CAP is authorised by the FCA and covered by our insurance. CAP's size and expertise mean that we have all the necessary permissions and a compliance team to stay on top of the regulation — an almost impossible task for a church to do on their own. Clients can also book appointments and speak directly to their assigned caseworkers Monday to Friday, with phone lines open 9:30am-5pm.

What your church needs to do

In order to open a CAP Debt Centre, you will need the following:

To recruit a CAP Debt Centre Manager who can work a minimum of 16 hours week (either as a volunteer or as an employee of your church)
Access to a computer, internet and mobile phone
Volunteers who are willing to support your Centre Manager and CAP clients
To book a CAP speaker who will come and give a talk at a Sunday service, which will include a regular giving ask

How much does it cost?

Opening a new CAP Debt Centre incurs a significant cost to CAP (roughly £21k per year), but we exist to invest in local churches that want to help the poor and save the lost in their communities. However, we do ask that churches share in this cost and make a monthly contribution towards at least a third of CAP's costs — a minimum of £600 per month for a Debt Centre seeing four clients.

We offer fundraising training and consultancy to help you raise these funds. There may also be some flexibility in the contribution for churches in deprived areas or for smaller churches already engaged in a lot of social outreach.