Diversity & Equalities policy

1. Our commitment

Think & Do London is a climate and social not-for-profit. We work predominantly with people from the global majority, with residents of London’s housing estates, and with young people who are building their futures in a city that does not always make room for them.

Equality is not a side note in this work. It is the work. Our mission is to create genuine opportunity for everyone we serve – from the climate jobs of tomorrow to the everyday chances young people need today – and that mission only holds together if our organisation reflects, respects and is shaped by the communities we are part of.

This policy is our commitment, in writing, that diversity and equality run through every part of Think & Do London: who we hire, who we serve, who sits on our board, who designs our programmes, and how we behave towards one another. We expect everyone connected to Think & Do London to share that commitment and to help us live up to it.

2. Purpose of this policy

This policy sets out:

  • What we mean by diversity and equality at Think & Do London.
  • How we meet our duties under the Equality Act 2010 and other relevant laws.
  • What we expect of trustees, staff, volunteers, partners and contractors.
  • How people who experience or witness discrimination can raise concerns and trust that they will be taken seriously.
  • How will we monitor actioning this policy?

3. Who this policy applies to

This policy applies to:

  • Trustees and other members of the board.
  • All employees, whether paid or unpaid, full-time, part-time or fixed-term.
  • Volunteers, sessional workers, interns, apprentices and trainees.
  • Consultants, freelancers and contractors working on our behalf.
  • Partner organisations delivering services or projects in our name.
  • Members of the public who use our services, attend our events, or take part in our programmes.

Where partners or contractors are working with us, we will share this policy with them and expect them to operate in line with its values. Where they cannot or will not, we will reconsider the relationship.

4. Our values and approach

Equality policies often read the same in every organisation. Ours is rooted in who we actually are and who we work with. Five principles guide how we put this policy into practice.

1. Community-rooted

We work with people from the global majority and with residents of housing estates because those are our communities, not because they are a target group. Decisions about programmes affecting a community are made with that community, not for it.

2. Lived experience is expertise

Knowing an estate, a school, a neighbourhood, a journey to work, a barrier to opportunity – these are forms of knowledge we value alongside formal qualifications. Our recruitment and our programmes are built to recognise that.

3. Pathways, not just access

A genuine opportunity means more than letting people in. It means paid roles, real training, fair progression and routes into the climate and social sectors that have historically excluded the young people we work with. We measure ourselves against this.

4. Plain talking, real action

We will name discrimination when we see it, including in our own practice. We do not hide behind the process. We would rather have a hard conversation early than a quiet failure later.

5. Accountability close to the ground

The people most affected by what we do should be the people most able to challenge us. We will keep building ways for our communities to hold us to account, not just our funders and regulators.

5. The Equality Act 2010 and protected characteristics

We comply with the Equality Act 2010 and all related UK equality and human rights law. Under the Act, it is unlawful to discriminate against, harass or victimise a person because of a protected characteristic. The nine protected characteristics are:

  • Age
  • Disability
  • Gender reassignment
  • Marriage and civil partnership
  • Pregnancy and maternity
  • Race – including colour, nationality, and ethnic or national origins
  • Religion or belief, including lack of belief
  • Sex
  • Sexual orientation

The Act recognises four main forms of discrimination, and we take all of them seriously:

  • Direct discrimination – treating someone less favourably because of a protected characteristic.
  • Indirect discrimination – applying a policy, practice or rule that looks neutral but puts people with a protected characteristic at a disadvantage.
  • Harassment – unwanted behaviour related to a protected characteristic that violates someone’s dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.
  • Victimisation – treating someone badly because they have made or supported a discrimination complaint.

Going beyond the legal minimum

The Equality Act is the floor, not the ceiling. In addition to the protected characteristics, we recognise that the communities we serve face disadvantage linked to factors the law does not always name directly. We pay active attention to:

  • Socio-economic background and income, including child and in-work poverty.
  • Where someone lives, in particular, residents of social and other housing estates.
  • Care experience, including young people leaving care.
  • Immigration and asylum status, including people with no recourse to public funds.
  • Caring responsibilities, including young carers.
  • Experience of the criminal justice system.

We treat these as equality issues in their own right, and we factor them into how we design programmes, recruit, and make decisions.

6. Roles and responsibilities

Equality is everyone’s responsibility, but some roles carry specific duties.

The Board of Trustees

The Board holds ultimate responsibility for this policy. The Board will:

  • Approve the policy and any material changes to it.
  • Receive an annual report on diversity, equality and inclusion from the policy lead.
  • Ensure that equality is reflected in our strategy, budget and risk register.
  • Take responsibility for the diversity of the Board itself and the pipeline of future trustees.

Director for Youth & Diversity – designated policy lead

Hafiz Onitolo, Director for Youth & Diversity, is the designated lead for this policy. His responsibilities include:

  • Championing diversity and equality at the board level and across the organisation.
  • Overseeing implementation of this policy, including training, monitoring and review.
  • Acting as a senior point of contact for anyone who wishes to raise an equality concern, in addition to the routes set out in section 10.
  • Reporting at least annually to the Board on progress, gaps, and lessons learned.
  • Leading on our commitments to young people, especially those from the global majority and from housing estates we work with.

Senior staff and programme leads

  • Embed this policy in day-to-day operations and in every programme we run.
  • Model inclusive behaviour and challenge discrimination when they see it.
  • Make sure their teams understand the policy and have access to training.
  • Bring equality considerations into decisions about hiring, partnerships and procurement.

All staff, volunteers and trustees

  • Treat colleagues, partners and members of the community with dignity and respect.
  • Follow this policy in their own behaviour and decisions.
  • Speak up if they witness or experience discrimination, harassment or bullying.
  • Take part in induction and ongoing equality and inclusion training.

Partners, contractors and funders

  • Are expected to operate in line with the spirit and the letter of this policy.
  • May be asked to share their own equality policy and practice when working with us.
  • Should expect us to raise concerns directly with us if their conduct falls short.

7. Recruitment, employment and volunteering

How we recruit and how we treat people once they are with us is one of the clearest tests of this policy. We do not want a team that looks one way and a community that looks another.

Reaching the right people

  • We will advertise opportunities widely, including through housing estate networks, youth organisations, community groups, schools, colleges and grassroots channels -not just professional jobs boards.
  • Job adverts and role descriptions will be written in plain English. We will say what the job actually involves and what we genuinely need, rather than padding descriptions with qualifications that exclude good candidates for no good reason.
  • We will be clear about pay in every advert.

Fair selection

  • Shortlisting will, where possible, be done blind to names and other identifying information.
  • Interview panels will be diverse wherever we can make that happen.
  • Lived experience of the issues a role addresses – estates, youth work, climate, the global majority experience of London – will be treated as a genuine and valued qualification.
  • We will offer reasonable adjustments for disabled candidates at every stage of recruitment, and ask everyone what they need rather than waiting to be told.

Pathways for young people

Opening real routes into employment for young people, especially those from the global majority and from the estates we work on, is core to our mission. In practice, this means:

  • Paid internships, apprenticeships and trainee posts are never unpaid work in place of a real job.
  • Paying at least the London Living Wage, and being honest with ourselves about whether that is enough for the role.
  • Designing junior roles so that someone without a degree, without office experience and without a professional network can succeed in them.
  • Active mentoring, induction and progression support -not just a desk and an email address.

Terms, conditions and progression

  • Pay, terms and conditions are set fairly, transparently and consistently. We do not pay differently for the same work because of who someone is.
  • We will keep flexible and family-friendly working arrangements under active review, including for carers, parents and people with health conditions.
  • Decisions about progression, training, secondments and development opportunities are made on merit and need, not on who is in the room.

Volunteers and trustees

The same principles apply to volunteer recruitment and trustee recruitment. We will actively work to make sure that volunteering with Think & Do London, and trusteeship of Think & Do London, are genuinely open to people from the communities we serve -not just to those for whom these roles are easy to take on.

8. Service delivery and working with our communities

Equality in service delivery is about more than non-discrimination. It is about whether the people we exist to serve can actually reach us, trust us and shape what we do.

  • Programmes are co-designed with residents, young people and community organisations wherever possible. We test our assumptions before we build.
  • Locations, times, language and cost of activities are chosen to make participation realistic, not just theoretical. Free at the point of use is our default for community programmes.
  • We provide information in accessible formats and, where needed, in languages other than English. We will ask, not assume, what people need.
  • We respect the cultural, religious and personal identities of everyone who engages with us. People should not have to leave parts of themselves at the door to take part.
  • We collect feedback from participants and act on it. Where we get something wrong, we say so, and we change it.
  • We will not work in a community without taking the people, organisations and history already there seriously. Trust is earned over time, and we plan for that.

9. Harassment, bullying and discrimination

Think & Do London will not tolerate discrimination, harassment, bullying or victimisation in any form, by anyone, towards anyone connected to our organisation or our work.

This includes behaviour by staff, volunteers, trustees, contractors, partners, participants, members of the public and anyone else encountered in the course of our work. It includes behaviour online and on social media as well as in person.

Bullying and harassment can be obvious – slurs, threats, deliberate exclusion – or subtle and persistent: jokes that always land at one person’s expense, comments about someone’s background, dismissive treatment based on accent, postcode, age or appearance. It is the impact on the person on the receiving end, not the intention of the person doing it, that matters most.

Anyone found to have discriminated against, harassed, bullied or victimised another person under this policy may face disciplinary action up to and including dismissal, removal as a trustee, removal as a volunteer, or termination of a contract or partnership. Where conduct may be a criminal offence, we will involve the police.

10. Raising concerns

Anyone who has experienced or witnessed discrimination, harassment, bullying or victimisation is encouraged to raise it. We will take what you say seriously.

You can raise a concern by:

  • Speaking to your line manager or programme lead, if you feel able to.
  • Contacting Hafiz Onitolo, Director for Youth & Diversity, as the designated lead for this policy.
  • Contact the Chair of the Board of Trustees if the concern involves senior staff or if you would rather not go through the staff team.
  • Following our Grievance, Whistleblowing or Safeguarding policies where relevant. These policies sit alongside this one and complement it.

We will handle concerns confidentially as far as we reasonably can, and we will be honest about the limits of confidentiality -for example, where safeguarding or criminal matters are involved.

No one will be punished, disadvantaged or treated badly for raising a concern in good faith, even if the concern is not upheld after investigation. Retaliation against someone who has raised a concern is itself a serious breach of this policy.

You also have the right to raise concerns externally, including with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), ACAS, the Charity Commission, or an employment tribunal where applicable. Nothing in this policy removes that right.

11. Training and awareness

  • Equality, diversity and inclusion are part of induction for all new staff, volunteers and trustees.
  • Anyone with responsibility for recruitment, supervision or safeguarding receives more in-depth training, refreshed regularly.
  • We make space in team meetings and away days to talk about how this policy is actually working – not just whether it exists.
  • Training is designed to be honest and practical, not a tick-box exercise. We will use external facilitators where it helps, especially those with lived experience of the issues we are working through.

12. Monitoring and review

A policy that is not measured is a policy that is not real. We will:

  • Collect equality data on our staff, volunteers, trustees and (where appropriate and consensual) the people who use our services.
  • Treat this data as voluntary, anonymous where possible, and held securely in line with our Data Protection and Privacy Policy and UK GDPR.
  • Report annually to the Board on the diversity of our team and board, our recruitment outcomes, pay information, complaints raised under this policy and action taken, and progress against any equality objectives we have set.
  • Publish a public summary of this report each year, so the communities we work with can see how we are doing.
  • Review this policy at least once a year, and sooner if the law changes, our work changes significantly, or we learn something that means it needs to change.

The Director for Youth & Diversity leads on this monitoring work and presents it to the Board.

13. Related policies and documents

This policy should be read alongside our other policies, which together set out how we behave as an organisation. These include:

  • Safeguarding Policy (Children, Young People and Adults at Risk)
  • Recruitment and Selection Policy
  • Code of Conduct
  • Grievance and Disciplinary Procedures
  • Whistleblowing Policy
  • Data Protection and Privacy Policy
  • Health and Safety Policy
  • Volunteer Policy

Where any of these documents appear to conflict with this policy, we will work to resolve the conflict. Our commitment to equality is not optional and should not be undermined by other procedures.

14. Adoption

This Diversity & Equality Policy has been adopted by the Board of Trustees of Think & Do London in April 2026 and is signed on behalf of the Board and by the designated policy lead.