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