Funding ULI Diversity Initiatives in Four U.S. Regions
Date Posted: May 20, 2019
Posted In: News, Organizations,
Ten years ago, ULI Colorado launched its Real Estate Diversity Initiative (REDI). The grass-roots program has become a model within the Institute for fostering education and career opportunities for people of color and women that is now poised for national growth. In 2015, ULI Minnesota reached out to ULI Colorado for guidance on launching their own program. Through ULI Minnesota’s partnership with United Properties, the program secured funding for both the Minnesota and Colorado programs.
ULI is leveraging a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to expand the REDI program throughout its network of district councils in the United States. Earlier this month, ULI announced four grant winners that include St. Louis, Kansas City, Memphis, and Indiana. Each will receive a $20,000 grant spread over two years that will help them launch their own REDI programs. ULI is also using grant funds to provide additional resources to all of its district councils, including a REDI guide and quarterly informational conference calls.
“This national grant that is now available is a huge opportunity for other district councils to have the funding that they need to begin to launch this program,” says Marianne Eppig, manager of ULI Colorado—and one of the more than 300 graduates of Colorado REDI. Both the Colorado and Minnesota councils have worked closely with ULI to create the REDI guide that gives other councils a framework for starting their own programs.
“We are absolutely thrilled that we won a grant. The REDI program seems to be a wonderful next step for our work in equity, which in St. Louis has grown into what we’re calling our Equitable Communities Initiative,” says Kacey Cordes Mahrt, chair of Mission Advancement at ULI St. Louis and vice president, assistant director of Project Management, Affordable Housing at U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corporation in St. Louis.
Building diversity is an issue that moved to the forefront in St. Louis following the 2014 police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, and the subsequent protests both in Ferguson and throughout the state.
Missouri’s governor created the Ferguson Commission, which released a comprehensive report and call to action that included a list of objectives aimed broadly at improving racial equity throughout the state. ULI St. Louis took that to heart and started looking for ways that it could make a positive social impact. “We absolutely need to cultivate a group of developers of color and women to really help us get the big regional work done than is needed, meaning organic redevelopment of so many neighborhoods and pockets of the city that we currently don’t have the capacity for,” says Cordes Mahrt.
The grant will layer on top of work that ULI St. Louis has been doing to build relationships with stakeholders in community development. The council is currently taking applications, lining up mentors and speakers, and identifying development sites to serve as case studies for its first REDI class of 30 that will start this fall. “It is so exciting and cool to see the response to the program just in conversation during meetings around town,” says Cordes Mahrt. “People are just thrilled that ULI is providing leadership here.”