Dear Real Estate Professionals, Our mutual friends at First American Title Company have challenged YOU to help Habitat for Humanity of Laramie County #NAILTHECHALLENGE this summer. You know better than most how rewarding it is to work with first time home buyers. You get to guide people through the process of finding, financing, and closing on the biggest investment most families will ever make, and we hear so many of you tell us it's your favorite part of the work you do.
It's a big motivator for us too. Our partner families contribute 400 hours of sweat equity (often exceeding that number!) towards the construction of their home. They build alongside hundreds of volunteers, donors, and supporters who want to see them achieve the dream of living in a home of their own and pursuing opportunities that become possible on the strong foundation of home ownership.
This year, we're celebrating the milestone of building our 50th affordable home in Cheyenne!
We thought this was going to be the big story for 2020, but Covid-19 had other plans!
Like everyone, our organization had to quickly adapt to the global pandemic. For us, it meant stabilizing our ReStore (which generates the revenue for our staff payroll and overhead costs), canceling or postponing all of our spring fundraisers, and figuring out how to keep our build timeline on schedule with a world that had gotten a lot more complicated!
Despite all of the uncertainty and limitations, we're happy to report that we are not only on schedule but AHEAD of where we were in the building process last year. A lot of the credit belongs to future homeowner Jaime, who is working tirelessly with our Construction team to get his house built.
Last weekend, a team from First American Title came out to build with us. Through their corporate foundation, they're a 2020 Business sponsor contributing $5,000 towards our 50th home. But the local team did not want to stop there, so we told them about our #NAILTHECHALLENGE campaign.
Habitat's 2020 project has been designated a Faith Build with an opportunity to raise up to $80,000 in donations that will be matched dollar for dollar by Thrivent.
Opportunities like this don't come along often. Even though our original fundraising plans had to be canceled, we knew we couldn't let the pandemic stop us from seizing this opportunity, and #NAILTHECHALLENGE was born!
We're asking supporters to help us #NAILTHECHALLENGE by donating, volunteering, and by challenging their friends and colleagues to do the same. That's what our friends at First American Title did - their team will be donating the proceeds from their monthly "Jean Day" collection to the project and they are challenging real estate agents, lenders, and title companies to get involved too! WATCH THEIR CHALLENGE VIDEO NOW:
When you donate to the #NAILTHECHALLENGE campaign, you're helping build a stable future for the Stephenson family - but it doesn't end there. When the Stephensons close on their home, they'll begin paying an affordable zero-interest mortgage. They'll start building equity on their home right away and Habitat will utilize their house payments to build affordable homes for all the partner families we work with over the life of the loan. That means every donation to Habitat is a long term investment in affordable housing in our community.
Every real estate professional who donates to the campaign will be included in our weekly thank you post on our social media channels (last week our posts reached over 6,000 people). And if you're able to make a substantial donation, we'll work with you to find a way to acknowledge your generosity. Reach out to kate@cheyennehfh.org with questions.
The Cheyenne community is a fantastic place to call home. No one knows this more than the professionals who help buy and sell real estate every day. With your support, we'll make the dream of home ownership accessible to more families for years to come!
WANT TO MAKE YOUR OWN
VIDEO?
Making a video is a great way to show your support of Habitat for Humanity and affordable housing in Cheyenne, while promoting your work as well! Get creative! #NAILTHECHALLENGE at your next open house, challenge your colleagues, have fun with it! Below are examples of folks you may know #NAILINGTHECHALLENGE for Habitat.
Make your own, email your video to jen@cheyennehfh.org- she'll add some logos for you and share it on Habitat's platforms.