What if the future of anti-poverty work isn’t about building bigger organisations, creating more services, or adding another layer of infrastructure? What if it’s about building better connections?

At Angels Connect, we’ve spent the last few years exploring a simple but important question: how do we help people access the support they need before they reach crisis point?

The answer hasn’t been to create another advice service. Instead, we’ve focused on strengthening the connections between communities and the specialist support that already exists.

It’s an approach that has led us to think differently about how social change happens. Rather than building institutions that people have to find their way into, what if we built the “plumbing” that helps support flow more effectively through communities?

This idea sits at the heart of a new article Rich has written for Resolve Poverty, exploring how Angels Connect is beginning to demonstrate a different model for tackling poverty – one built on trust, relationships, local knowledge and shared infrastructure rather than organisational growth.

The article reflects on what we’ve learned so far, why traditional service models often struggle to reach people early enough, and how community-based referral networks could become an important part of the future anti-poverty landscape.

👉 Read the full article here.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and reflections as this conversation develops.