Shift Beyond

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

From Crisis of Trust to a Culture of EncounterIn 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

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