Speaker: Tiffany Malone
What is the Good Neighbor Award?
Melissa Bjerke Markgraf: I'm Melissa Bjerke Markgraf, your 2023 RASCW President, and I'm Carla Nowka, and I chair the RASCW Networking Committee. And we're here today to talk about the Good Neighbor Award. So Melissa, NAR created the Good Neighbor Award in 2000, and two years ago RASCW created a local program. And the whole intent behind this is to recognize our Realtor® members who volunteer within the communities that they live and work. How many recipients were there this year? For this year, we had five recipients and we had a grand total of $15,000 to share amongst those recipients, which was amazing. Congratulations to all the award recipients.
Let's meet one of the recipients!
Tiffany Malone: Hello, my name is Tiffany Malone. I currently work at Alvarado Real Estate Group. I've been in real estate for six years. I'm a Realtor® here in Madison, Wisconsin and I'm also the co-creator of Own It-Building Black Wealth.
What's your organization?
Tiffany Malone: Own It Building Black Wealth is an innovative initiative designed to address the racial disparities in real estate through a strong collaboration of community and business partnerships in the greater Madison, Wisconsin area. The collective mission is to empower, educate and guide Black and brown families towards homeownership, wealth and financial freedom.
What motivated you to get involved?
Tiffany Malone: What motivated me to help create Own It Building Black Wealth is number one, I come from a single family household. My mother was a single woman that raised myself and my two older sisters and she was a lifelong renter. And I remember from a very young age, I empathized with how hard she worked. She worked a full-time job and she worked a part-time job just to be able to pay her rent. And till this day, I can't help but think how differently her life would have been if she would a had the tools and the guidance in regards to owning a home. If somebody would have taught her different, told her different, provided her with some type of financial literacy.
Tiffany Malone: Number two, I'm a Black woman and I know firsthand how hard it is to get ahead in this world.
Tiffany Malone: You know, Black, Black and brown people couldn't own homes for decades.
Tiffany Malone: We've all been discriminated against for years and nobody really talks about it. And I know it, it's sad, it makes you mad and it makes some people uncomfortable. But it's the truth and it's history and we have to be real about history, and we have to be real about history in the financial industry. So, these are a couple things that keep me going and keep me advocating for Own It and it, it's been a ride.
What does receiving the Good Neighbor Award mean to you?
Tiffany Malone: Receiving the RASCW Good Neighbor Award is very emotional. It means a lot to me because it's been three years of hard work. Hard work, tears, frustrations, doubting myself at times. But also three good years of helping people. Helping people attain homeownership and seeing that smile when they finally sign on the dotted line, and knowing that these families will be in a better position now because they actually own homes.
Tiffany Malone: With this award, it has showed me that I'm, I'm doing the right thing and I'm where I'm supposed to be right now in my life.
How can others get more involved in their communities?
Tiffany Malone: I would tell others that would like to get involved in their community to just do it. Find something that you're passionate about and get out there and do it.
Tiffany Malone: It, It takes a whole lot of people in order to come together and change some things. I always say that we want to be in community with each other.
Tiffany Malone: And that has been one major thing that I have learned over the years is collaboration. Don't try to do everything alone. But, but we need you and we need others and we need others to join in in their communities and do things as well.
