Diversity Program Checklist

Diversity efforts succeed if they are supported by your association’s leaders and reflect the distinctive characteristics and needs of your membership. Not all programs will be the same. Yet certain principles have surfaced so often in successful programs around the country that the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® is presenting them here for your consideration. We believe you will find them helpful.

Plan for diversity...

• Develop clear, long-term goals that reflect your association’s strengths and competencies.
  Be realistic about what your association can control and affect. Put goals in order of priority so that the most needed can be addressed first. For example, when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published an unfavorable Analysis of Impediments to housing choice, the Greater Rochester (N.Y.) Association of REALTORS® developed a long-term strategy to combat the problem. First priority was to take control and test its own current practices. “If we didn’t move ahead on that issue," says John Piper, former CEO of the Association, “the testing would have been done for us — probably by a third party, under a HUD contract, who might come up with some headline-making results, but who wouldn’t provide us with any corrective advice or training.” Read the case study .
  
  
• Make sure that diversity goals and policies are included in your association’s strategic plans.
  The Colorado Association of REALTORS® formalized its diversity goals in a Pledge to Racial and Ethnic Diversity. “We no longer have a Voluntary Affirmative Marketing Agreement with HUD,” says Kay Watson, president of the Association, “so we decided that this was the best way to keep diversity in front of our members.” Read the case study .
  
  
• Provide the resources needed and plan within the resources available.
  Your association’s most valuable resource is the time of your volunteers. Develop descriptions for diversity-related jobs, outlining time requirements and expectations for involvement and work. Resources can also come from outside the association. For example, when the Greater Baltimore Board of REALTORS® needed money for a public information campaign, it obtained grants totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars and in-kind donations worth thousands more from radio and TV stations. “Radio and TV stations want to do community outreach anyway,” says Carolyn Cook, GBBR’s director of government relations, “so it’s not too difficult to leverage more time if you can convince them that it’s for a worthy cause.” Read the case study .
  
  
• Plan reasonably.
  Diversity efforts should be achievable and will likely be incremental. Identify intermediate steps and develop annual action plans with clear-cut objectives. After its testing, the Greater Rochester Association of REALTORS® participated in a countywide Fair Housing Choice Strategy Team that developed 81 specific Strategies for Promoting Fair Housing opportunities in Monroe County. Some of these were delegated to GRAR, and by executing them one at a time, building results year by year, the Association has seen steady improvement both in fair housing and in the size of the Rochester housing market.

Address diversity systematically.

• Research your community’s demographics.
  Armed with information on low homeownership rates among Koreans in and around Los Angeles, the California Association of REALTORS® worked with other organizations to develop the Korean “Dream to Reality” Initiative to open up opportunities. Research into the challenges facing Korean-speaking homebuyers is helping organizers fine-tune the $20 million initiative. Learn more about understanding your community
  
  
• Explore your community’s power structure, particularly among minority segments of the population.
  The Houston Association of REALTORS®, for example, met with local groups and then scored them according to a four-point scale. “We wanted to find out if they were really players,” says Oscar Gonzales, HAR’s chief strategic relations officer, “so we could partner with the ones with influence.” Read the case study .
  
  
• Survey membership demographics and attitudes regarding diversity.
  “I love my online surveys,” says Ginger Downs, executive vice president of the Seattle King County Association of REALTORS®. “It’s a great tool. I probably send out one a month.” Read the case study .
  
  Incentives can boost response rates. For example, when the Santa Clara County (Calif.) Association of REALTORS® promoted its survey in the association newsletter and offered a prize drawing for a Palm Pilot, participation increased tenfold. Read the case study .
  
  
• Test the reaction to various approaches to diversity.
  In developing its Pledge to Racial and Ethnic Diversity, the Colorado Association of REALTORS® found that some members of its Board of Directors initially resisted the concept of a pledge. The workgroup drafting the document spent a year meeting with members to explain the underlying principles and entertain compromises. Says the Association’s president, Kay Watson: “The important thing is to be flexible.”

Create a standing — not ad hoc — committee to implement your diversity program.

A standing committee demonstrates your intent to make diversity and fair housing an integral part of your association’s mission. The committee should have authority to recommend policies and programs to your Board of Directors. Its membership should include individuals with a strong commitment to diversity plus other members who are more focused on the association’s broader strategic aims. While the committee itself should be diverse—and should definitely include leaders who belong to the demographic majority—it should not be the only group in the association where minorities serve. The committee should be responsible to do the following.

• Encourage members to learn about diversity and fair housing and identify opportunities for doing so.
  NAR’s “At Home with Diversity: One America” course is the place to begin. Many associations have developed their own language and culture courses as well. See, for example, case studies from the Northern Virginia Association of REALTORS® and the Williamson County (Tenn.) Association of REALTORS®
  
  
• Identify real estate issues affecting local minority communities and develop association responses.
  When the Greater Baltimore Board of REALTORS® learned about widespread housing fraud aimed at young African American women, it launched a broad-based public information campaign to fight it. “It helped us bridge the gaps we’d had in the past with other groups,” says Cook. “We may still sometimes have differences of opinion, but they look at us as an organization that’s trying to solve problems.”
  
  
• Encourage broader minority member participation in your association and in its leadership.
  Sometimes simply getting members involved in a diversity committee can be a good first step toward getting them more involved in the association as a whole. The Seattle King County Association of REALTORS® recently elected three minority members of the Cultural Diversity Presidential Advisory Group to its Board of Directors. That was part of the advisory group’s purpose from the outset, says Downs: “The president wanted the Board of Directors to be more reflective of the community.”
  
  
• Work closely with the membership committee to encourage outreach and recruitment among minority members.
  Since 1988 the Minneapolis Area Association of REALTORS® has been recruiting minority members by offering them scholarships for their first year of membership dues.Well over 300 applicants have now received that break. “Without question,” says MAAR’s CEO Mark Allen, “there are significantly more minority members than in the past.” Read the case study .
  
  
• Develop strategic relations, partnerships, and coalitions with leading local minority and community-based organizations.
  The Houston Association of REALTORS® went so far as to devote a full-time staff member to just such a project. “Not only were the demographics of Houston changing, the leadership was too,” says Gonzales. “We wanted to maintain a relational foothold and maintain power in that shifting dynamic.”

Measure your progress. Hold your committee and association accountable for diversity efforts, and be prepared to adjust course.

MAAR, for example, has offered not only dues assistance but also networking programs to promote opportunities for its minority members since the late 1980s. Staying on top of new issues as they arise and developing a strong multicultural support system has allowed the association to expand these initiatives at low cost over 15 years, so that they now produce tangible benefits not only for members but for potential minority homebuyers.


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