CAP announces new CEO, Stewart McCulloch.
In a joint statement, debt help charity Christians Against Poverty (CAP) and Christian charity Stewardship have announced that Stewardship CEO, Stewart McCulloch, is to move to CAP.
Stewart McCulloch will join CAP as CEO at the start of 2024, taking over from the charity’s interim CEO, Lisa Pearce, who will return to her role as Deputy Chair of CAP’s board.
Stewart joins CAP at a pivotal moment in its fight against UK poverty and debt; the charity’s recent report, ‘Taking on UK poverty’, revealed there has been a dramatic increase in household debt levels since the pandemic. CAP is currently engaged in a number of initiatives to develop the service provided to support local churches in tackling these impacts, as well as increasing their anti-poverty advocacy within local communities.
We couldn’t be more delighted to be welcoming Stewart to the CAP family. Stewart’s Christian faith underpins his motivation to work with the Church in the UK to fight the effects that debt and poverty have on people’s lives. Stewart’s wealth of experience across church networks, finance and organisational development will be an important asset to CAP as we seek to grow our impact.
Roger Hattam, CAP’s Chair of Trustees
Over the last five years, Stewart has led Stewardship through a time of significant transformation; he has overseen the development of its charitable giving services in support of both generous Christians and its church and charity partners, including the creation of an award-winning philanthropy team. As a result, Stewardship’s annual gifts received have grown by 40% in this period and in 2022, £82.6m was granted to churches and charities, an increase of 14% year on year.
Stewart also led Stewardship through the purchase of Kingdom Bank in 2020 and the establishment of a rapid response fund that raised £4.8m in 100 days for 99 organisations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to joining Stewardship, Stewart led a major initiative for World Vision’s global microfinance lending operations to protect over a million of the world’s poorest farmers in Africa and Asia from the effect of climate shocks on their livelihoods.
Stewardship and CAP have long enjoyed a close working partnership built on the natural synergies between us as two of the larger UK charities engaged in faith and finance. We look forward to strengthening that relationship further as Stewart joins CAP as CEO.
We also pay tribute to the incredible job Stewart has done at Stewardship; during his tenure, we have reached a position of sustainable, profitable growth, built a brilliant and highly motivated team, and developed an exciting new strategy to launch in 2024. We are so grateful for his exemplary leadership at Stewardship and wish him every success as CEO of CAP.
Chris Gillies, Stewardship’s Chair of Trustees
