Why member engagement is at the heart of everything we do

Simon Nunn, Executive Director of Member Services at the NHF, explains in his blog why the results of our annual survey of member chief executives and chairs are so important. And how the sector's spirit of increased collaborative and partnership working is reflected in our Making an Impact Report.

At the NHF we believe that working in partnership with others adds an immeasurable amount of value to our work – and the most important partnership is the one we have with our members.

Bringing people together and forging connections within the sector is something we place a huge amount of importance on.

That is why member engagement is at the centre of everything we do. As a trade body we can only be at our best when our work is informed by our members - and a unified sector achieves better outcomes for everyone, not least the millions of residents who live in our homes.

To help us ensure that our engagement work is effective, each year we ask our chief executives and chairs how satisfied they are with our services and our priorities. This is an important piece of work that helps us gauge how well we are performing against our pledge to be the best trade body we can be.

We were encouraged by the results of our latest survey, carried out towards the end of 2024.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the survey. It really does help us understand what we are doing well and where we could improve to ensure that next year they are even better.

Key findings were:

• Overall satisfaction increased from 82% in 2023 to 86%.
• Satisfaction from chief executives increased from 88% to 91% and chairs 70% to 76%.
• Overall, 90% of respondents were satisfied with our political engagement in the lead up to the general election and 91% were very or fairly aware of that work.
• 71% said NHF membership represents value for money, a 2% increase on last year.
• 89% of chief executives think the NHF’s strategic priorities are right.

The overall results are heartening and are hopefully a reflection of our ongoing efforts to provide the best value for all of our members, no matter their size, location or specialism.

We feature lots of examples of this in our Making an Impact Report, summarising our work as a sector across our 2022-25 business strategy. Members’ quotes and insights are included so please have a read if you haven’t already.

As we look ahead to our new business strategy, we’re ensuring that member engagement and partnership remains central to our work. With this in mind, we carried out a large consultation exercise towards the end of last year with around 700 of our members, as well as stakeholders, partners and residents, to give us a renewed understanding of social housing’s challenges, strengths and vulnerabilities.

Our findings are summarised in our Strategic Review report, which highlights the sector’s key issues and three emerging priorities, which will help shape our new five-year business strategy due to be published in April this year.

It provides an important snapshot of where we are as a whole sector in 2025 so, again, please read or download it if you haven’t already and a big thank you to everyone who got involved with this project.

We look forward to working ever more closely with our members as we take our business strategy forward in the coming years.