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For seven years, in its annual ThanksGifting campaign, Apartments.com has celebrated charities that partner with the multifamily industry.
This year, we’re donating $60,000 to support the important work of six charities across the U.S. and Canada. This brings Apartments.com’s total contributions over the years to over $300,000.
From addressing food insecurity to creating long-term pathways out of homelessness, these nonprofit organizations are working with or within the multifamily industry to create a brighter future for individuals, families, and communities.
This season, we’re highlighting the important work of Connective, CoreGiving, Entryway, Hatching Hope, and Move for Hunger.
And thanks to Stacey Johnson of The Heartland in Peoria, Illinois, we’re also honoring Retirement Housing Foundation. As the winner of our October contest, Stacey selected the sixth charity to receive $10,000 and be honored in this year’s campaign.
Meet this year’s winners
The six recipients of this year’s campaign are addressing social issues across North America, working from within the multifamily industry or in close partnership with apartment communities:
- Connective provides housing and support services to people facing homelessness and other barriers.
- CoreGiving relies on support from its real estate and multifamily funders to direct 100 percent of donations to fund food banks across the nation and mobilize volunteer support.
- Entryway combats homelessness by providing at-risk individuals with a path to housing and economic stability through a career in the multifamily industry.
- Hatching Hope provides essential supplies to help multifamily residents recover from disasters like fires, floods, and hurricanes.
- Move for Hunger fights hunger and food waste by providing a transportation network that connects apartment communities and others to local food banks.
- Retirement Housing Foundation provides housing and services to older adults, low-income families, and people with disabilities.
Representatives from Connective, CoreGiving, Entryway, Hatching Hope, and Move for Hunger joined the latest episode of Minutes with Marcia B. to shine a spotlight on how their organizations work within or with the multifamily industry. Check out the episode!
The podcast is available on all major platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.
Connective provides housing alongside individualized support
Housing is about more than just a place to live. For Connective, a Canadian nonprofit that helps individuals and families overcome barriers like homelessness and addiction, the roof over a person’s head is an essential part of the puzzle — but it’s not the only piece.
Connective relies on a multi-service model that combines housing with individualized support and community connections. This includes hot meals, laundry services, and job training.
“We bring services and community connections together around the person so they have more than a place to turn to in a moment of crisis,” said Julia Barnes, vice president of growth and success at Connective. “They also have an opportunity to move forward.”
Partnering with developers, funders, and government entities, the organization develops and acquires affordable housing.
In a recent success story, Connective acquired 55 units of below-market rental housing in the city of Duncan on Vancouver Island.
Connective also provides building maintenance and long-term stewardship of the communities that the organization owns and manages.
“This makes a huge difference in the lives of the tenants,” Barnes said. “They’re reporting feeling more peace of mind, feeling safety, feeling well-being. One of the tenants said to us, ‘It’s such a relief to know our daughter has a secure place to grow up.’”
CoreGiving fights childhood hunger through direct support for food banks
What do food banks and food pantries need to be successful? Consistent funding and volunteer support.
That’s what CoreGiving delivers, thanks to its unique pass-through model.
The collective giving organization is funded by Blackstone Real Estate portfolio companies, including property management companies in the multifamily industry.
As a result of this structure, CoreGiving’s operating expenses are fully covered by its corporate funders. This lets the public charity direct 100 percent of its donations, such as the $10,000 from Apartments.com, to more than 90 hunger relief organizations across the country.
The organization also mobilizes volunteers through its annual CoreGiving Day.
CoreGiving is dedicated to providing children with complete, nutritious meals. Recently, the organization supported a food bank and community kitchen based in Denver, Colorado.
“Oftentimes the meal that is provided through that after-school program is the only comprehensive, well-balanced meal that that child is getting that day,” said Bridget O’Connell, the organization’s executive director.
Entryway provides housing and self-sufficiency through a career in multifamily
Homelessness doesn’t just look like a tent on the sidewalk. Less visible forms of homelessness, including situational homelessness, can mean sleeping in one’s car or on a friend’s couch.
Entryway focuses its efforts on this “invisible” homelessness, stepping in to help people facing housing instability and helping them create a path toward self-sufficiency.
And the multifamily industry is essential to that mission.
Entryway works with over 100 multifamily employers to place at-risk individuals in essential property management roles in leasing, maintenance, HVAC, and more.
Not only do these individuals gain a new skill set, career path, and source of income, but these positions typically also come with onsite housing.
“What Entryway is really trying to do with the multifamily sector is bridge stable jobs and homes to provide those families with stability for the long haul,” said Renee Rivard, national director of development at Entryway.
Recently, the organization helped Milan, a mother in Columbus, Ohio, turn her life around. Thanks to Entryway’s support, she landed a full-time position in property management, securing onsite housing for herself and her children.
“Every morning when she leaves for work, she knows her kids are watching,” Rivard said, citing a quote from Milan. “They’re seeing that hard work pays off and that they built this home together.”
Milan is now working toward her goal of becoming an HVAC technician.
Entryway has trained over 1,300 individuals for careers in the multifamily industry.
The $10,000 donation from Apartments.com will fund Entryway’s expanded training program to prepare individuals to re-enter the workforce. This includes covering the rising costs of leasing training, HVAC certification, work gear, and more.
Hatching Hope helps disaster victims recover
When a recent fire tore through an apartment community in Tampa, Florida, more than 200 people lost their homes.
Hatching Hope quickly showed up to deliver essentials, including disaster relief kits, clothing, children’s toys, and pet supplies.
The organization was founded by former multifamily professional Keli Lynch-Wright and her son, after they lost their own home in a fire.
Built on Lynch-Wright’s dedication to the multifamily industry, Hatching Hope provides immediate and long-term recovery essentials to the residents displaced by hurricanes, floods, and other disasters.
The organization has served over 1.5 million residents and delivered over 1 million pounds of disaster relief.
“We’ve proven that when we come together for the greater good of others, we can move mountains and make change,” Lynch-Wright said.
Thanks to the $10,000 donation from Apartments.com, Hatching Hope is replenishing its disaster relief supplies. The apartment fire in Tampa “depleted everything that we had in that market,” Lynch-Wright said.
“Having this $10,000 donation at this time is going to help us stay strong and be ready for when we are called upon again,” she said.
Learn more about Hatching Hope
Move for Hunger fights hunger and waste
Could a moving truck be the answer to hunger and food waste? That’s the inspiration behind Move for Hunger.
The organization began with a simple idea: Give people an easy way to donate food when they move. It has since expanded into a nationwide transportation network that delivers unwanted food to the people and organizations who need it most.
Every day, an average of 2,000 loads of food risk being discarded, said Jennifer Bushinger-Ortiz, Move for Hunger’s director of development.
“If not for a phone call to an organization like ours who can say yes, because of funding and support, to transport that to the local food bank and pantry,” she said, “that’s going to end up in the landfill.”
In a recent success story, the nonprofit rescued two tractor-trailer loads of yogurt, delivering the yogurt via a refrigerated truck to a local food pantry.
Move for Hunger’s extensive transportation network includes 3,000 apartment communities, where food is collected during move-outs and through food drives. By the end of the year, the organization expects to reach the milestone of 100 million pounds of food delivered.
The $10,000 donation from Apartments.com will help Move for Hunger provide over 40,000 meals, Bushinger-Ortiz said.
“This gift is really going to allow us to say yes faster and get that food to where it’s needed,” she said, “stocking shelves at food banks and pantries, feeding people in their homes and communities, and not filling up our landfills and further hurting our environment.”
Learn more about Move for Hunger
Retirement Housing Foundation houses vulnerable adults and families
To give multifamily professionals a voice in this year’s ThanksGifting campaign, Apartments.com invited participants to nominate a deserving charity.
Property manager Stacey Johnson was selected as the winner of the October contest, earning the opportunity to choose the sixth organization to receive a $10,000 donation. She nominated Retirement Housing Foundation.
Stacey works at The Heartland, an affordable senior housing community in Peoria, Illinois, operated by Retirement Housing Foundation.
The organization, which operates in 28 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, provides housing and services to over 19,000 people.
Founded in 1961, Retirement Housing Foundation began with the mission to provide seniors with affordable housing. It has since expanded to serve low-income families and people with disabilities.
Learn more about Retirement Housing Foundation
A commitment to giving back
Apartments.com’s ThanksGifting program began in 2020 to highlight and support the important charitable work happening alongside apartment communities. Since then, the campaign has contributed over $300,000 to charitable organizations that partner with or work within the multifamily industry.
“We are multifamily helping multifamily,” said Marcia Bollinger, Apartments.com’s senior vice president of multifamily, in the recent podcast episode with this year’s recipients.
