UNH was asked by IBM to participate on their “Citizen IBM” blog, and our Executive Director Nancy Wackstein posted an entry, linked below. It focuses on the important role settlement houses play in providing a social safety net, 100 years ago and today.
Read the post here>>
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The ‘age wave’ begins in 2011 – every 8 seconds someone in the United States will turn 65. (Ford Foundation)
Hartley House
Manhattan
Hartley House, founded in 1897, is a settlement house and a community center that provides essential human services and sponsors activities to improve the quality of life and strengthen a sense of community in Hell's Kitchen/Clinton.
Strengthening Settlement Houses
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For more information about UNH’s services for members, please contact Snehal Majithia, Deputy Director of Member Services or Ken Walters, Director of Member Services.
Build the capacity of the UNH membership and manage strong, resilient organizations. Plan for and evaluate service delivery to assure that the settlement house model thrives into the next generation and beyond.
To build the capacity of UNH members, UNH works with Executive Directors, Board leadership, and staff at all levels to provide a wide variety of technical assistance, peer support and program enhancement opportunities as well as professional development for settlement house staff. Through these activities, UNH helps address issues such as financial management, resource development, communications, human resources and technology.
Ways UNH Helps:
- Connects settlement houses to technical assistance from UNH partner providers such as Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF), Fiscal Management Associates (FMA), and Community Resource Exchange (CRE).
- Monthly Executive Director and Associate Executive Director meetings discussing topics such as how agencies are handling reduced government funding in a particular program area or exploring the possibility of collaborative activities.
- Workshops such as “Development Systems Audit,” for fundraising staff facilitated by UNH partner Cause Effective or “Human Resources Updates” for HR staff by UNH partner Lawyers Alliance of New York.
- Specialized training such as the full day IBM Trailblazer Social Networking Workshop, offered by longtime corporate partner IBM.
- Access to special projects such as the ReServe Human Resources pilot project and NPower’s Community Corps
Partner Organizations
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Reports
Advancing Literacy Through the Arts (2009) (302 KB) 02-Dec-2009
Supporting Parent Engagement: Lessons from Settlement House Programs (2009) (646 KB) 02-Dec-2009
Programs and Issues
Membership Standards / How to Become a Member
UNH is one of the few membership organizations in the NYC human services sector to have standards for new and continued membership. Teams of UNH Board members, member Executive Directors and UNH staff conduct regular assessments against these standards. Learn more »
Strengthening Settlements Initiative for Smaller Agencies
UNH member agencies vary greatly in budget size from under $1M to over $70M. To address the unique needs of agencies with distinctly smaller budgets, UNH developed the Strengthening Settlements Initiative. Learn more »
Peer Support and Information Exchange
UNH works to strengthen the system of settlement houses and community centers by providing support for its member agency workforce, which numbers close to 10,000 employees. As part of this support, UNH organizes meetings of staff with similar jobs from member agencies. Learn more »
Financial Management Services
UNH works in partnership with colleague organizations including the Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF), Financial Management Associates (FMA) and Community Resource Exchange (CRE) to help UNH members with strategic decision-making and financial management and to make resources available to pay for this assistance. Learn more »Recent News
Settlement Houses Are an Essential Component of the Social Safety Net
Friday, January 04, 2013
UNH in Stockholm
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Ken Walters, Director of Members Services, represented UNH, alongside Executive Directors and other staff from 5 UNH member agencies, at the 2012 International Federation of Settlements Conference in Stockholm. Ken and Michele Buono, Associate Director of Programs at Goddard Riverside Community Center, co-presented on the Settlement House Advantage survey. The survey, developed by UNH agency Associate Executive Directors in partnership with Dr. Mimi Abramovitz, the Reynolds Professor of Social Policy at Hunter College, is designed to explore the impact of the settlement house model of providing services and strengthening communities, and assess the extent to which program participants do and do not experience or benefit from it. The survey is currently being administered to program participants at UNH member agencies.
