Become a Volunteer
- Non-members or individuals from smaller housing associations who are keen to get involved with UNIFY will be able to join the subgroups that support one of our pillars.
- Volunteers can become members of the Senior Leadership Team once they take on a specific role or function required by the team.
- When events or activities are organised individual volunteers will be able to attend the event at no cost.
1.Why Volunteer?
- Better Network Connection- Through ongoing projects, we have built better relationships. You will work with many key stakeholders internally and externally such as CEOâs (most from the G15), Directors, Managers and Officers to create and drive change â this is the norm when working on initiatives within the subgroups.
- Leadership skills - Influence, driving change, understanding priorities and maintaining motivation are all key qualities of a leader. Most people think leadership is easy, in some case this is when you working in a corporate environment with an existing structure and only focusing on a small area for the business. You might have a small team who are willing to do tasks as theyâre paid to listen and do that role. However, what happens when you find yourself leading on a bigger issue in society, trying to influence change at an organisation/sector level and only working with volunteers who might not have the skill sets you require or the time to commit whole-heartedly? That form of leadership is more fluid and not so easy to gain. However, by the end of your term you should have experience that is more valuable on how to handle new situations and take lead with different groups of people. Most importantly, you will get a gauge for how well you can drive projects when it involves taking on additional responsibilities on top of your current role.
- Experimental â The network is a great place to be experimental. Some people have a vision of how they would create change, the network is a great place to test those ideas as you really see whether your ideas will work or not. One thing we learnt is ideas can sometimes fail but you still have to push forward to find another way that you can make it work. How you wish to do that is up to you but through this process, you learn a lot about your own skill sets and about building and making use of the skill sets within the UNIFY community.
- Variety â As a volunteer be expected to be pulled in many different directions. Each direction will lead you to a different project that will require your attention. You will be working with different teams and variety of different initiatives. This makes life a lot more interesting for people that find their roles transactional, repetitive or monotonous. You will definitely have some capacity to learn new skills or develop your latent abilities.
- Confidence â Talking about Race, Equality, Diversity are not easy. As time goes on you will become confident in having these challenging conversations with colleagues and senior management. This will give you the self-belief in times you need to speak up when you have something on your mind and do not agree with certain ideas, views or strategies.
2.Who is this for?
- If you are an officer looking to progress to a manager, this is a good opportunity to recruit members, lead teams and gain experience in motivation, under performance, conflict management and delegations. You will work on real projects you can provide as examples.
- For managers looking to progress to the next level, this is a good opportunity to get involved with creating new strategies, reviewing policies, access to senior management, influencing change at both organisation and sector level as well as being responsible for driving and delivering initiatives.
- For those that are not looking at progression, then this will give you freedom to experiment with your creative side, meet new people, develop new skills outside your current roles and have fun in the process
3.How to volunteer?
To volunteer simply send us an email with the role you willÂ
Open Vacancies
Content Curator
- Upload content to LinkedIn and Twitter
- Support teams to complete communication plan for each initiative or project they want to promote.
- Create tweets and LinkedIn posts, as well as source images for content.
- Create article for days of significance throughout the year.
- Send communication to UNIFY members and mailing list.
- Chase members to complete bio for âSpotlight of UNIFY Talentâ
- Report to Marketing and Communications Director.
Support Our Events Team
Celebrating cultural events is important to the work we do to spread awareness of different cultures and traditions.Â
Here are the events we have committed to delivering this year.
- Ramadan / EidÂ
- Black History MonthÂ
- Pride (focus on intersectionality)
- Christmas (focus on ally ship)
- Ad Hoc Projects
You will have the choice to opt into the events that youâre most passionate about. For each event, you will be working in a team of 5-10 people to deliver an initiative from inception to completion. These will take place at different time of the year but planning normally starts 2–3 months earlier. All information will be provided in good time. Â
Support Our Annual Conference
UNIFY will host our annual conference on Friday 10th November 2023. We’ll be bringing together key decision makers to focus on particular themes.
This year the theme of the conference will be ‘Accountability’, as we look at the journey travelled since the inception of the G15âs Ethnic Diversity Pledges in 2020.
What’s Required
- Attendee check-in
- Support with workshops / Networking event
- Tech support
- Wayfinding
- Photography
- Managing speakers/ exhibitors
- Set-up and tear-down
For the event, we are looking for 8-10 people to support us on the day. Why not consider using your volunteering days at your organisation to get involved and support our work.Â
To become a volunteer please complete our registration form.Â
It takes less then 3 mins to complete.Â