In this episode of Shift Beyond Conversations, host Rich Jones is joined by Nic Whyley, Senior Philanthropy Manager at the University of Salford, to explore what it means to build solutions without building empires inside one of the UK’s most community-rooted universities.

As higher education faces what Nic calls “an existential moment,” she reflects on how universities can rediscover their civic purpose - shifting from global prestige to local partnership, from growth for its own sake to growth that actually closes gaps.

Together, Rich and Nic unpack:

• how The University of Salford’s history as a Royal Technical Institute still shapes its civic mission today;

• why philanthropy must evolve from a transactional model to one of co-design, humility, and shared power;

• and what it takes for universities to be neighbours, not empires - anchor institutions that listen before they lead.

From peer-led tutoring projects transforming young lives, to curriculum redesigns that level the playing field for students from widening participation backgrounds, Nic paints a vision of education that’s truly inclusive - not as charity, but as justice.

This conversation challenges our definitions of success, reminding us that bigger isn’t always better.

Real impact, as Nic and Rich suggest, comes from being rooted in place, in purpose, and in partnership.

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🔗 About the Series

Shift Beyond Conversations explores how we can build solutions to poverty, inequality, and injustice - without building empires.

🎙 Hosted by Rich Jones, CEO of St Andrew’s Community Network and Angels Connect.

🎧 Produced in partnership with Shift Beyond and Angels Connect - reimagining systems for dignity, justice, and change.

From Crisis of Trust to a Culture of Encounter

In this solo episode of Shift Beyond Conversations, host Rich Jones reflects on themes from a recent Theos Think Tank lecture by Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester - a talk that asked one urgent question: how do we rebuild trust - in one another, in public systems, and in the very idea of community itself?

Drawing on Burnham’s call to move from a crisis of trust to a culture of encounter, Rich explores what happens when local agency is hollowed out, when politics becomes distant, and when the systems built to help people end up feeling soulless.

Linking Burnham’s vision to the Shift Beyond philosophy, this episode examines how we might design systems that are more human, relational, and locally rooted, where trust is treated as infrastructure and connection as the starting point, not the outcome.

Rich offers three movements for reflection:

• Naming the Fracture - understanding the loss of trust and shared truth.

• Reimagining the Local - moving from systems at people to systems with people.

• Practising the Shift - ten practical actions to rebuild connection and agency.

Throughout the episode, he unpacks what Burnham’s proposed “Live Well” model means for local systems change, and how Angels Connect - a digital referral and triage platform born from St Andrew’s Community Network - embodies that same shift: technology built not for scale but for trust.

It’s a conversation about humility, shared power, and the courage to rebuild from the bottom up, a reminder that real change begins not with control, but with connection.

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🔗 About the Series

Shift Beyond Conversations explores how we can build solutions to poverty, inequality, and injustice without building empires.

🎙️ Hosted by Rich Jones, CEO of St Andrew’s Community Network and Angels Connect.

🎧 Produced in partnership with Shift Beyond and Angels Connect - reimagining systems for dignity, justice, and change.

What if the very thing we’ve been taught to chase - growth - is part of the problem?

In this episode of Shift Beyond Conversations, host Rich Jones opens up a bold and hopeful discussion about reimagining charity and social impact in a world that’s obsessed with size, scale, and expansion.

The Shift Beyond series explores a simple but radical idea: what if success isn’t measured in how big our organisations become, but in how free people are to live without poverty and injustice? Across each conversation, leaders, thinkers, and funders explore how we can build solutions without building empires - how we can design systems that share power, uphold dignity, and create lasting change.

This conversation features Daisy Carter from NPC (New Philanthropy Capital) - a researcher and strategist working at the intersection of consultancy, philanthropy, and social impact. Daisy brings a sharp and grounded perspective on the charity sector’s long-standing obsession with growth and how it shapes the way organisations set strategies, define success, and measure impact.

Together, Rich and Daisy unpack some of the most urgent questions facing charities, funders, and policymakers today:

What happens when “scale” becomes a barrier to real change?

• How do we move from counting outputs to understanding outcomes?

• What might success look like if it was defined not by expansion, but by empowerment?

• And how can researchers, funders, and leaders help the sector step back, slow down, or hand over power, so that communities can lead transformation themselves?

Throughout the conversation, Daisy reflects on what it takes to shift from organisational growth to systemic impact, how think tanks like NPC can help reframe success, and what commitments funders and researchers must make to avoid empire-building while still enabling bold, collaborative solutions.

The episode weaves together challenge and hope, calling for courage in leadership: the courage to fund differently, to research differently, and to lead differently. It reminds us that impact is not about growing bigger but about creating freedom, freedom from crisis, freedom from inequality, freedom to thrive.

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The Shift Beyond podcast is supported by Angels Connect, a social enterprise born from St Andrew’s Community Network in North Liverpool. Angels Connect is more than a sponsor, it’s a live case study of the Shift Beyond philosophy in action.

Developed to redesign access to debt and welfare advice, Angels Connect puts the power to connect people to help directly in the hands of communities; teachers, faith leaders, health workers, or neighbours - enabling anyone, anywhere, anytime to make a referral within minutes. Rather than scaling traditional charity models, Angels Connect reimagines how support systems can work: lighter, faster, more relational, and more human.

By linking technology, collaboration, and justice, Angels Connect demonstrates what “building solutions without building empires” looks like in real life. It’s a digital platform, but it’s also a philosophy about redistributing power, simplifying complexity, and designing out poverty from the ground up.

In this spirit, Shift Beyond Conversations brings together voices who dare to ask the hard questions, and imagine a better way forward. Each episode opens up dialogue between thinkers and doers who believe that the future of social change depends not on empire-building but on community liberation.

Listen in as we explore what it means to go beyond altruism towards a more just, humble, and human form of impact.

🎙️ Hosted by Rich Jones, CEO of St Andrew’s Community Network and Angels Connect.

🎧 Produced in partnership with Shift Beyond and Angels Connect - reimagining systems for dignity, justice, and change.