Why become a member

UNIFY is made up of passionate individuals that volunteer their time to make sure the voices of diverse colleagues in the housing sector are heard.

Since 2016 staff network groups from founding members such as Clarion, Notting Hill, Peabody, Genesis and L&Q came together to improve the under representation of ethnically diverse staff.

We focused our efforts on different activities celebrating different cultures and raising awareness of career barriers and other sector inequalities.

Download Our Membership Brochure ->

Through our efforts in the last 6 years ..

Our progress

We have delivered panel discussions on key topics
We have influenced strategy across the housing sector; in 2020, UNIFY consulted with CEOs across the housing sector to contribute to the Diversity pledge; this was a pivotal moment for UNIFY as we were able to share lived experiences of our network members to help shape the pledge.
We listened to our network members, engaged with the wider sector and co-created bespoke events, sessions and workshops with partner organisations.
We provided career development opportunities by partnering with Gatenby Sanderson a Leadership & Talent Consultancy. Together we developed a leadership programme that truly equips colleagues with leadership skills, confidence, and most importantly access to career opportunities.

To continue our work within the sector, we are now moving towards a new model that will allow us to expand our reach and become more sustainable as a voluntary group. The more we grow as a network, the more positive changes we can achieve.

Our plans going forward

We’re initially looking for 15 organisations that will support us.
Commitment of a £3000 from each member
Organisations will be included on all our marketing material as a UNIFY members.
We will use the money to deliver our core offer to members but also look at ways to grow UNIFY in terms of activities, initiatives, infrastructure and volunteers.

For 2023-2024 we are now focusing our efforts on the following….

Our offer

LeadershipNOW!

Staff Network Forum

Annual Conference

Cultural Events

Our tailormade leadership interventions are built on research from our ‘Future Leaders in Housing workshops’, conversations with CEOs and Chairs across the social housing sector and feedback from previous participants.

The programme has been delivered successfully over the last two years

Certified by the CPD Certification Service.
The programme involves a series of bespoke workshops, one-to-one coaching, peer conversations and personality profiling spread across eight months
You will also have access to a private LinkedIN networking group for alumni, current participants, mentors and UNIFY members.

The overall fee for the programme is £2,500 + VAT; the cost of the programme is subsidised for UNIFY Members from the normal fee of £3,250 + VAT.

Download the LeadershipNOW! Brochure 2023 or visit our dedicated website

UNIFY members have led networks within our respective organisation, we understand that running a staff network comes with challenges. We created this safe space for network leads to share there current experience and learned from people that have been in there shoes.

The session will last 1 hour and take place every month over Microsoft Teams and will focus on specific topics.

Regular support and training to Network Leads
Setting up core infrastructure e.g. communication channels, file management and governance structures
Too much too soon – finding your focus as a committee.
Performance management of volunteers
Experiencing burnout
Community vs Organisational goals for network.
More…

UNIFY can provide support to your current staff network. They will be able to learn best practices from different organisations but also have a network to support them.

In October 2019 we delivered an event called “Shining a spotlight on BAME”. The CEOs of the largest housing associations (Clarion, Peabody, L&Q, Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing, and Notting Hill Genesis) were invited to sit down together and have an open discussion about BAME staff. The themes that arose from these discussions have helped to shape positive action such as the G15 Diversity Pledge addressing inequalities in the sector.

Our previous conferences include

Social Justice Discussion (2016)
Housing Leadership Discussion (2017)
30 Years Forward (2017)
Colour in your Career (2018)
Crunch Time (2019)
Career Fair (2020)

UNIFY will aim to have a annual conference, bringing together key decision makers to focus on particular themes.

Celebrating cultural events is important to the work we do to spread awareness of different cultures and traditions. It is a great way to host an informal networking event that brings people together more naturally.

The events we commit to delivering.

Ramadan / Eid (March to April)
Black History Month (October)
Pride (Part of our intersectionality work at UNIFY -June)
Christmas (December)

Organisations will be able to benefit from our events when there may be limited activity happening within their own organisations. This a great way to deliver initiatives without doing all the work.

If you want to become a member of UNIFY, then please contact us via email at [email protected]

How to become an official member

Our team will give you a call and go over a couple of questions to make sure you are the right fit for us.

We are asking all organisations to send their confirmation of interest by Thursday 30th March 2023, so we can prepare and deliver our programme of works from April 2023. We are open to accepting contributions this financial year from oganisations who still have resources remaining in their budget; this can be a part or full payment. This comes with an advantage of allowing you to spend your remaining budget and have more money next financial year having paid part/full membership contribution in advance.

Please take a quick look at our membership agreement so you’re familiar with our terms and conditions.

Membership Agreement

This year we are being selective with the organisations we work with and have limited our membership to 15 organisations. We want to make sure its manageable for us as a voluntary group, but also for us to exceed expectations with the resources we have in place.