Trust
Collective power starts with trust. We create spaces where women can share knowledge, experience and opportunity with confidence, honesty and care.
We are building the blueprint for high-achieving Black women to flourish.
A community, resource and lifelong learning ecosystem where professional Black women share knowledge, open doors and build lives, careers and legacieswith joy at the centre.
Trust + Collaboration + Philanthropy = Collective Power
Why we exist
Success should not require survival.
Black women have built extraordinary careers, businesses, families and communities, often while navigating systems that were not designed with us in mind. The Joy Set Collective exists to help change what comes next. We are building an ecosystem where our health, wealth, work, relationships and communities can be intentionally designed with joy at the centre. Not simply for this generation, but for the women coming behind us.
Our mission
To build the blueprints, relationships, resources and opportunities that enable Black women to flourish across generations.
Our founding values
Collaboration
We do not have to build alone. We believe our networks become more powerful when we connect them, share what we know and create together.
Philanthropy
Giving is part of our blueprint for success. Not only money: time, knowledge, mentorship, introductions, access, resources and opportunity. Success becomes more powerful when it creates possibility for somebody else.
Trust + Collaboration + Philanthropy = Collective Power
Building blueprints
We're not just having conversations. We're creating something to leave behind.
Each Joy Set experience contributes knowledge, tools, recommendations and lived wisdom to an evolving blueprint for flourishing.
Health
Wealth
Work
Relationships
"What do we know now that we wish someone had told us earlier? And how do we make sure the next woman doesn't have to discover it alone?"
The Open Door Pledge
When a door opens for you, hold it open.
The Open Door Pledge is our commitment to turn individual success into collective opportunity. It is both a promise and, over time, a practical exchange of knowledge, access and support.
Share
useful knowledge, resources and experience
Connect
women to people, communities and opportunities
Mentor
where your experience can help another woman
Give
time, expertise, access, resources or financial support where possible
Open doors
rather than guarding them
The Open Door Exchange — Sign Up Now
The longer-term vision is an open, searchable community database of what members can GIVE, WANT and hope to RECEIVE — so opportunity can travel between us instead of sitting still.
The full database isn't needed at launch. The first step is simply registering your contribution and your ask. Signing the pledge never makes your personal details public: only what you explicitly consent to share will ever be eligible for display.
Our network is our power
Imagine what becomes possible when we stop keeping our networks separate.
The Joy Set Collective is not designed to replace existing Black women's networks, professional communities or grassroots organisations. We want to connect them, share learning between them and make opportunity travel further.
Bring your network. Share your knowledge. Expand somebody else's world.
Add your network
We are building a directory of networks, communities and organisations supporting professional Black women. If you run one, or know one worth knowing, add it here.
The blueprint in action
Over twenty gatherings. Seven partners. Three cities. One blueprint, still being written.
Camden · Kensington · Westminster
Black Joy at Work
Three workplace activations. One evolving blueprint.
What it added to the blueprint
That Black professionals should not only be invited into conversations about what is wrong. We also need spaces to explore what enables us to flourish.
Read the case study→
In partnership with Antilles Network
The Repositioning
Creating space to reconsider what comes next.
What it added to the blueprint
That we do not have to build everything alone. Our communities already hold extraordinary knowledge, experience, networks and resources.
Read the case study→
Bingham Riverhouse
Black Joy Renaissance
Expanding the story of Black life beyond survival.
What it added to the blueprint
That the community is not simply an audience for the blueprint. The community helps build it.
Read the case study→
In partnership with Black Women of AllBright
Curating the Year
An ongoing partnership shaping an annual programme for Black professional women.
What it added to the blueprint
That community isn't built by filling a room. It's built by giving people a reason to come back, contribute and bring somebody else with them.
Read the case study→Selected work. The full programme spans over twenty gatherings across three cities.
- 20+
- Gatherings
- Seven
- Partner organisations
- Three
- Cities
London · Milton Keynes · Manchester
From the Collective
Member Spotlight: Chloe's Edit
An editorial feature celebrating knowledge, perspective and contribution.
- What does flourishing mean to you now?
- Not output. It's the rooms I'm in. Being around people who spark something instead of draining it. That shift is basically why The Edit exists.
- What do you know now that you wish you'd known earlier?
- Networking isn't schmoozing. It's finding your people. I avoided rooms for years thinking it meant performing. It doesn't.
- What door would you like to open for another woman?
- The right room, at the right time. Before she talks herself out of it. That's the whole point of The Edit.
Upcoming experiences
SEPTEMBER 2026
Is It Safe To Be You? Safe. Rested. Audacious. Black Women's Health Redefined.
A gathering redefining what safety, rest and audacity mean for Black women's health.
Book Your TicketOCTOBER 2026
The Joy Power Table
A table for connection, knowledge, opportunity and collective power.
2027
REUNITED: Ghana
A journey of reconnection, identity, joy and flourishing.
The founder's letter
A Letter from Our Founder
The journey to The Joy Set Collective began long before it had a name.
After more than 30 years working in leadership and personal development, I found myself reflecting more deeply on the journey of my ancestors, the African diaspora, my own career and the experiences of my peers. I began thinking about the challenges our communities face today, but even more importantly, what we want our future to look like.
My annual pilgrimage to the Caribbean has become a time for me to refuel, reframe and reset. Away from the noise, I have space to think differently.
And one question kept returning: How did we become so disconnected from one another?
I could understand some of the reasons. What interested me more was finding solutions. How do we rebuild trust? How do we share what we know? How do we open doors for one another? And how do we create something the generations coming behind us don't have to start again from scratch?
I often return to Maya Angelou's writing and the idea that although we may arrive as individuals, we never arrive alone. We come carrying those who came before us.
That took me back to my own parents. What they achieved as part of the Windrush generation was extraordinary. They built lives, families and communities while navigating circumstances that were never designed to make their success easy.
As a first-generation Black Briton, I see The Joy Set Collective as part of continuing that journey. But this time, we are documenting the blueprint.
We are collecting insights, sharing networks, collaborating, opening doors and building an ecosystem that supports our success across health, wealth, relationships and careers so that what one generation learns can become access for the next.
And then there is joy.
Joy has always been part of how our communities have survived. In our music, food, humour, celebration, faith, creativity and togetherness, we have found ways to create joy even when circumstances gave us every reason not to.
But I don't want joy to exist only as a response to adversity. What if joy could also become part of how we advance?
What if we intentionally used joy to shape how we work, lead, build wealth, care for ourselves, create relationships and strengthen our communities?
That is the work of The Joy Set Collective — Where Black joy builds legacy.
Thank you in advance for taking your seat at our Joy Table.
Jackie G Michaels
Founder, The Joy Set Collective | Joy Architect
Our individual success is powerful. Our collective success can change generations.
Join a growing community of Black women sharing knowledge, opening doors and building the blueprint for what comes next.
Trust + Collaboration + Philanthropy = Collective Power