Center for REALTOR® Development 118: NAR Grants, Tools, and Resources for State and Local REALTOR® Associations To Turn Ideas into Actions with Christine Windle: Part 1
Welcome to the Center for REALTOR® Development podcast. I'm Monica Neubauer, your host.
REALTORS® play a powerful role in shaping our communities. Many are deeply involved, while others are just beginning to explore the possibilities. As an industry, we bring tremendous value, not just to buyers and sellers, but to neighborhoods, main streets, and local community development initiatives that make our communities stronger.
What many people don't realize is that the National Association of REALTORS® offers a suite of grants, tools, and resources available only to state and local associations, to help turn great ideas into action. Whether it's improving housing access, revitalizing public spaces, or tackling zoning challenges, NAR has programs that can help.
Maybe something we discuss today will inspire an initiative you may want to get involved in, or open a door you didn't know was there.
[1:50] Joining us to share more is Christine Windle, who helps lead some of these efforts at NAR. Welcome, Christine.
[1:59] Monica shares Christine Windle's biography.
[3:02] Christine explains that NAR's Community Outreach Program offers several grants: Smart Growth, Housing Opportunity, Placemaking, and Fair Housing. These are available exclusively to state and local REALTOR® associations, not individual REALTORS®.
[3:19] NAR's Community Outreach Program has produced webinars for state and local associations of REALTORS® and their leadership on how to leverage these grants. Just Google NAR Community Outreach webinars, and the page comes up.
[3:32] The discussion will be how REALTORS® can work through local associations and state associations to identify, advocate for, and support eligible initiatives. All of these projects are meant to be done with the community.
[4:03] It's REALTORS® helping the community, in partnership with their local and state association. There are networking opportunities. It's the industry lifting the community.
[4:50] The Community Outreach Grant and Resource program is designed to help REALTOR® associations and their leadership engage in transformational work, bringing REALTORS® to the table to support housing opportunity, smart growth, placemaking, and fair housing in their communities.
[5:12] Within the program, there are cornerstone grants. The Smart Growth Grant supports local planning efforts, infrastructure, investment planning, zoning reform, and more. It helps associations bring stakeholders together to plan for future growth in ways that are equitable and sustainable.
[5:32] The Housing Opportunity Grant is a little different. It focuses on expanding access to home ownership, reducing barriers, and promoting housing affordability. These grants often support first-time buyer education, workforce housing forums, and housing trust fund advocacy.
[5:50] The Placemaking Grant helps associations convert underutilized spaces into vibrant public spaces. So think of a pocket park, a trailhead, or alley activation. These small projects can have a really big impact on the quality of life and smarter growth.
[6:11] Monica asks to hear more about these individual programs and how they help REALTORS®.
[7:12] Christine explains the Housing Opportunity Grant. It's a widely used grant. It's a great member-engagement grant. It's a great grant to leverage for the local association when REALTORS® want to get involved in a Housing Fair. Several local associations will work with partners.
[7:30] Partnerships are an important aspect of these programs, with associations leveraging relationships with municipalities, Housing Authorities, and housing counseling entities to put together Housing Fairs. The grant can help support expenses associated with those Housing Fairs.
[7:53] The Housing Opportunity Grant Level 2 can be leveraged up to $7,500 to support the venue rentals, expenses, marketing materials, and needed workshop speakers. The REALTORS® work with the local association through the committee structure to help design the event and to help with engagement.
[8:15] Many of them come to the table with ideas on what we need to do to get it done this year. We work with the local association. The board of directors of the local association signs off, and the staff applies for the grant. We help them understand what the best practices are with housing fairs.
[8:36] Christine says we'll show them the housing opportunity toolkit, which has real-life examples, the REALTOR® success stories, where they can gain inspiration from what others are doing, to build the best program it can be.
[9:06] Monica says, If you get started, this is not something to drag your feet on. Start making the plan and start communicating with Christine and her team. Look at the earlier episodes this year about community investment grants to help individuals buy houses, and these episodes, and let the ideas flow.
[9:43] Christine explains, you can also use the grant to put together individual homebuyer education initiatives. Local associations are leveraging Level 2 to partner with the municipality to do outreach on Saturdays, where their REALTORS® and affiliates are teaching to help build awareness about education.
[10:15] Monica asks about Placemaking. The definition is not complicated. It's making places better. I see that as a high-level term used a lot in zoning language and in government situations. But I don't think the average real estate agent understands what that is or how easy it is to put in their community.
[10:52] Christine says our Placemaking program grew out of our Smart Growth program, which is to help REALTOR® associations and REALTORS® engage in building better and more livable communities.
[11:04] Think walkability, mixed use, housing affordability, and transit options, growing in versus growing out. That program was being designed in the late '90s. And then, as it grew over the decade, the Placemaking program came about.
[11:22] Placemaking means different things. But there was recognition that local associations could get involved in helping build more vibrant communities tactically. What that means to us is converting underutilized spaces. Think of a vacant lot between two buildings. There's potential with that vacant lot.
[11:44] Perhaps it's a pocket park that can go in there, or what we call an alley activation, where you could put lights and benches, a gathering spot for the community to get together and to help recognize and realize the potential of that space.
[11:59] Once you redesign that space and bring life to it, then the other areas of the town become vibrant. And so what we call Placemaking is quicker, lighter, cheaper projects.
[12:12] Christine gives an example. Take that pocket park, where you're putting benches together, maybe put a game table, and lights. The community says, I would like to have lunch there. Let me go to the local deli. That's a spot. You want that to be an attractive spot.
[12:27] It's also used for trail heads as well to connect communities and to build parks and to build dog parks, anything that brings in vibrancy. It's an exercise as well for the REALTOR® associations to build partnerships and relationships with local elected officials.
[12:46] Often, the association will have an idea, they'll bring it to the municipality, the parks director, and the elected officials, and they'll come together with a plan. The grant can provide support of up to $7,500 for that improvement. There's a lot of potential. The projects must be under half a million dollars.
[13:04] It's called Quicker, Lighter, Cheaper projects. We're not financing large capital facility projects; we're financing small parks, pocket parks. As of last year, we listened to our associations, and there was an interest in helping to refurbish some of these smaller-scale initiatives and community assets.
[13:26] Local associations can kick in funds to replace that bench that's been there for a long time, and to refurbish a smaller-scale community asset. Christine adds an important aspect: the lot must be publicly owned, not private property or owned by a non-profit. It must be owned by the municipality.
[14:16] There's a reason for that. We want the area to be vibrant for years to come. Once the municipality commits to that, we know that that investment from an NAR standpoint is going to stay. And we don't want to put any type of REALTOR® Party dollars toward anything that enriches an individual.
[14:40] We want it to be accessible and open to the community at all times. You can't lock it up for a period of six months. It's fine if, at sunset, you have to lock up the park. It has to be accessible to everyone.
[15:18] Monica asks about Smart Growth. Christine says to think of Smart Growth as bringing homes near jobs and the ability of residences and businesses to improve walkability and infrastructure, ensuring community revitalization efforts move forward.
[16:06] Christine says, think about infill as an example, where we have a vacant building. Is there an opportunity to ensure adaptive reuse or to bring in and develop mixed-use, to create a place where people can live, work, and play? That's the essence of smart growth.
[16:31] It's bringing homes closer to jobs. It means safer streets for people walking and biking. A lot of our associations are doing walkability audits to expand sidewalks and put in crosswalks so people can travel safely from one place to another. It has zoning that welcomes a mix of housing types.
[17:15] Monica notes that, going to a municipality with potential grants and education, an association can bring more to the table than just a request.
[17:42] Christine adds that the program offers a suite of resources, including grants, education, and funding programs that allow technical assessments to help diagnose a real estate problem to ensure smarter growth.
[18:00] There are lots of opportunities. We work with all of our local or state associations and meet them where they are in their journey on building better communities, in their journey on smarter growth. So proud of our team. We have Hugh Morris, who has been with us for 20 years.
[18:18] He is an urban planner. He has a different lens in terms of helping design educational plans for local associations and helping them with their journey.
[18:29] Hannah Dannenfelser, our manager of grant resources, came to us two years ago, helping us focus on Placemaking and really putting together some amazing and incredible toolkits and resources.
[18:42] She has a blog to inspire you. She manages our Fair Housing and our Rural Outreach program. We've got a heck of a team! If there's one thing to take away from this podcast, it's that the staff and the committees are here to help local associations leverage these resources to benefit their communities.
[19:11] As a real estate speaker, Monica has been invited to many smaller cities across the country. Speaking to those areas, Monica says, if you have a part of your area that needs a little attention, you can help in any phase. It can start with a study, or funding a Housing Fair, or funding a park.
[20:07] Monica sees so much potential and excellent energy happening in some of these small cities to create more housing options for people nationwide that she's excited to get this out to our listeners!
[20:25] Some places are working so hard to create beautiful spaces, and Monica wants you to know this is available for you.
[20:46] Christine says, We meet people where they are. We have a grant for every association. Christine shares an example: Our Rural Outreach Grant Program. This is designed for local associations that have a chartered footprint that includes a municipality with a population under 30,000.
[21:11] This grant, put in place three years ago, has helped those local associations put together forums on rural infrastructure, information on getting broadband, and addressing onsite well and septic education with our members. An association in Virginia had an educational field trip on wells and septic systems.
[21:55] Other examples are flood plain education and environmental open space preservation education.
[22:09] The Community Outreach Program has a tool for local and state associations to reach them. It's the Community Outreach Planning Session. It has been wildly successful since the pandemic. People sign up with Signup Genius and schedule a meeting with the entire team.
[22:32] Sometimes other grant managers from different programs will participate. The association asks to talk about X, Y, and Z. We need help with this. They set up a Zoom meeting and spend about 45 minutes or an hour with the association, designing their program and listening to them.
[22:56] We listen to what their priorities are. Our team responds to a grant or resource that could help. And then if there's something else that is on their mind, they want to reach NAR on, we of course send them to the appropriate person at NAR. Christine loves spending one-on-one time with associations.
[23:24] The local associations are welcome to bring their leadership. We have been on Zoom calls with entire committees and their spreadsheets, deciding how the grant program can support their advocacy priorities. It's a ton of fun and a learning experience. It helps establish a relationship.
[23:44] Christine says, Our goal with the Community Outreach Program is for local and state associations to keep these programs top-of-mind as they work through their advocacy initiatives, and discuss these priorities. We want to build a relationship with them. These planning sessions help.
[24:02] Associations are always welcome to text or email the Community Outreach Program. They do that when they need help. It's OK. Just reach out to Hugh. Just reach out to Hannah. Just reach out to Christine.
[24:38] Monica gives kudos to those local and state associations that have already reached out to the Community Outreach Program and the staff at NAR. We want to see more people do that, which is why we have this episode today. We're trying to educate some more folks.
[25:06] Monica brings up the grant opportunity of up to $3,000 to support education for REALTORS®. These grants can cover instructor fees, materials, and curriculum development. Christine says she's hoping our local and state association education directors are listening!
[25:46] The Community Outreach Program has several grant programs that offer up to $3,000 for eligible initiatives. They would love for the local associations to take advantage of it. The highest use has been the Fair Housing Grant Level One.
[26:01] Last year, we had a hundred local and state associations approved for that Level One to teach Bias Override and Fair Housing CE classes. Christine says, That's a low-hanging fruit. My only suggestion, with all of these grant programs, is please apply early.
[26:24] Christine lists classes: Bias Override, Planning and Zoning, Smart Growth Level One, and any type of zoning course; it doesn't have to be our zoning course. The idea is to teach REALTORS® and to build knowledge, so Level One is REALTOR®-only.
[26:49] If you want to go wide and go to Level 2, you're welcome to do that. We have a lot of local associations teaching Planning and Zoning and Bias Override, and inviting partners, the construction industry, and elected leaders. That's level two, up to $7,500, because you may need a bigger room.
[27:13] The Housing Opportunity Level 1 is being used to teach housing opportunities. If you're a new REALTOR® trying to find the down payment assistance programs available in your area, the local association could put together a program to teach REALTORS® about that. You could take it to Level 2.
[27:38] Rural Outreach Level 1 includes well and septic classes, open space preservation, and flood plain education. There's an educational opportunity for the four grants.
[27:51] We've also seen ADU workshops. So your municipality has now allowed ADUs. What is that all about? Do a workshop in your local association to teach REALTORS®. Go wide for a Level 2 Housing Opportunity. Maybe consumers want to understand the new ADU ordinance and the design standards.
[28:14] Take that opportunity to build great relationships with the community, inviting consumers in. It's inspirational that the local association is taking the lead. Your name is out there, building the REALTOR® brand, and you're ensuring that people know that REALTORS® are leading on these issues.
[28:41] Monica says our next episode is going to give you some success stories so you can see a little bit more of how this plays out. You need to apply, and you need to apply early.
[28:58] Christine says, The first thing to do, if you're a local association, is study the REALTOR® Party Community Outreach section. We have one page that talks about all of our grants and resources. Also, study the application process and the FAQs, where we talk about eligible expenses.
[29:17] Most importantly, sign up for a Community Outreach Planning Session to talk about how one or more grants could help. It's worth taking the time to do that, or just giving us a call and doing a brainstorm. If you're a REALTOR®, get involved with your local association.
[29:38] Talk to the local association Executive or Executive Director, the local Government Affairs Director, or the Education Director. Committee involvement is so important. There's strength in numbers. There's no I in team.
[30:05] Get involved in the committee. Talk to the board about what's important to the industry. Share your wonderful ideas based on your background. REALTORS® come from all walks of life. Christine is inspired when they come to the committee and they make a suggestion. "Have you thought what if…?"
[30:24] So, get in there, network, meet your fellow REALTORS®, support your local association, and, if you're game, rise the ladder and serve on your state association. Get more involved. Get more involved in NAR.
[30:40] There is so much there for you and for your business, in terms of relationship-building, knowledge-building, and getting engaged in the community. There are so many benefits for your business and the profession.
[30:59] When you're making suggestions, be inspired by those in the room, your fellow committee members, coming up with that idea, always thinking about, can a grant support this? Let me talk to my Association Executive about it, because I heard Monica talk about it a long time ago!
[31:21] Save this episode and get back to it after you get involved! It's hard to take in all this information and absorb it.
[31:30] Monica says, It is a lot, but you've done a great job, Christine, distilling it into these different areas and giving some snapshots of what's available. Thank you so much for your very clear direction on this!
[31:42] Christine adds, about the application process, it opens mid-January and typically closes mid-October, each year. This year, we ran out of money at the end of May.
[32:08] Christine's advice is for local and state associations to bring their ideas to the table now, to talk to Community Outreach around the fourth quarter about what they would like to do, and get ready to apply in early January. That gives a chance at the funding.
[32:25] Monica says, This is going to come out in the Fall of 2025. Hopefully, some of you have already had some ideas. You can go and plug this right in, but if not, you get those conversations started. If not for a few months, but don't yet. Don't, don't run, but do hurry. Don't run. Do hurry.
[32:53] We don't want you to trip, but we do want you to be involved. And you know, you may end up having a call with Christine's team and finding out that there are more pieces to put together, and you may be revisiting it a few months later.
[33:05] So some of these things do take time as they create vision for the long-term in the community and for the agents. We're going to wrap up Episode 1.
[33:16] Thank you so much to Christine Windle from NAR. We're going to talk about some success stories in Episode 2, so come back and join us there.
[22:25] This topic has become known to me because I've gone on NAR Architectural Tours, when you go to the Legislative Meetings, or the NAR NEXT and Annual, and I go to some of the committee meetings, and learn things.
[33:38] So I have been following these developments through planning commissions and also in my community in the city and county commission meetings. I'm going and watching how that goes.
[33:50] If you want to become more involved, and we hope that you will, you can take the Planning and Zoning Resource Class at Learning.REALTOR. There's an option there. There are also local classes. My association had a Septic Class that's still available on YouTube.
[34:09] Your association is creating some of those. Go to some of your meetings and ask your local or state association if they're applying for any of these grants. They may have something in process that you don't know about. Offer to be involved. Join the Government Affairs Committee.
[34:30] Thank you so much for coming and joining Christine and me, Monica Neubauer. I hope to see you out as part of the solution for providing more housing options and improving your community. And as you go out there, sell some more houses!
Tweetables:
"The Community Outreach Grant and Resource program is designed to help REALTOR® associations … engage in transformational work, bringing REALTORS® to the table in meaningful ways, to support housing opportunity, smart growth, placemaking, and fair housing in their communities." — Christine Windle
"The Placemaking Grant helps associations convert underutilized spaces into vibrant public spaces. So think of … a pocket park, a trailhead, or alley activation. These small projects can have a really big impact on quality of life and smarter growth." — Christine Windle
"Often, the association will have an idea, they'll bring it to the municipality, the parks director, and the elected officials, and they'll come together with a plan. The grant can provide support up to $7,500 for that improvement. There's a lot of potential." — Christine Windle
"The projects must be under half a million dollars. Understand, it's called Quicker, Lighter, Cheaper projects. We're not financing large capital facility projects; we're financing small parks." — Christine Windle
"The lot must be publicly owned. It can't be on private property. It can't be owned by a non-profit. It must be owned by the municipality. There's a reason for that. We want the area to be vibrant for years to come." — Christine Windle
"If you're a REALTOR®, get involved with your local association. Talk to the local association Executive, … the local Government Affairs Director, or the Education Director. Committee involvement is so important. There's strength in numbers." — Christine Windle
Guest Links:
Christine Windle, Director of Community Outreach at the National Association of REALTORS®
https://www.nar.realtor/about-nar/grants-and-funding/community-outreach-grants
https://realtorparty.realtor/community-outreach
Additional Links:
Learning.REALTOR — for NAR Online Education
Training4RE.com — List of Classroom Courses from NAR and its affiliates
CRD.REALTOR — List of all courses offered
Host Information:
Monica Neubauer
Speaker/Podcaster/REALTOR®
Monica's Facebook Page: Facebook.com/Monica.Neubauer
Instagram: Instagram.com/MonicaNeubauerSpeaks
Guest Bio
Christine Windle
Christine Windle serves as the Director of Community Outreach at the National Association of REALTORS®, where she leads the Community Outreach team and oversees the implementation of a suite of programs, grants, and services designed to strengthen state and local REALTOR® association advocacy on public policy issues.
With over 35 years of experience in advocacy, communications, organizational leadership, and PAC fundraising, Christine previously served as CEO and Public Policy Director of the Dulles Area Association of REALTORS® in Loudoun County, Virginia. She also held roles at NAR as Community Development Policy Representative and staffed key committees focused on smart growth and housing needs. Her additional experience includes advocacy roles with the American Institute of Architects, the National Society of Professional Engineers, and as a congressional intern for Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD).
Christine holds an MPA from George Mason University and a BA in Political Science and Economics from the University of Maryland. She is also a REALTOR® Association Certified Executive (RCE).