Causes close to home: How award-winning real estate agents use their platforms for philanthropy

They each had a story to tell: The loss of an 11-year-old sister or an infant daughter. An unstable upbringing. A close friend with a progressive disease, or the closing of a healthcare housing facility.

Five real estate agents each pointed to a pivotal life moment that sparked their non-profit work, for which they were recognized at the NAR NXT Conference hosted by the National Association of Realtors last week in Houston.

The 26th annual Good Neighbor Awards were held on Nov. 15 to honor agents who have dedicated themselves to volunteer work. Agents are first nominated locally at their association for the chance to win a $10,000 grant and national visibility.

This year's winners are Cindy Bradley of Sacred Ground Hospice House, Kim Clifton of Tierra Antigua Hope Foundation, Ken Larson of the Northern Lights Foundation, Ray Manzoni of ALS Ride for Life, and JacQuan Winters of the Kristen Amerson Youth Foundation.

Five additional finalists were also recognized at the awards ceremony and received $2,500.

"I think all of our Realtors should actually be doing more with the knowledge they have to serve their communities," said one such finalist, Stacey Ruwe of City2Shore Gateway Group. Ruwe was recognized for her work as president of Homeless Prevention Partners. "Everybody can serve in some little niche that matters to them."

Here are the five winners and their stories.

Cindy Bradley always envisioned her retirement in a beach house. That dream changed, though, after her husband of 38 years passed away and the only residential hospice center in their town closed.

“God laid it on my heart to build one," Bradley, a real estate agent in Knoxville, Tennessee, told Homes.com in an interview.

Rather than purchasing her beach house, Bradley invested roughly $3.5 million of her own funds to build Sacred Ground Hospice Home. The center opened four years ago and has since cared for nearly 800 patients.

“I'm not out hustling all the time,” Bradley said of balancing her non-profit with her real estate work. “God afforded me the time to go and do this, and I'm still there every day of the week.”

Kim Clifton says her mother "was not someone who really wanted to be a mom." So, she was raised by her grandparents and moved out at the age of 15.

The co-founder of Tierra Antigua Realty, southern Arizona's largest locally owned brokerage, now works closely with the Department of Child Safety and Arizona Young Adult Program to deliver supplies and support to keep children with extended families out of foster care.

Clifton started her Tucson-based brokerage in 2001 with her husband, Matt Clifton, before starting the Tierra Antigua Hope Foundation in 2014, where her husband serves as vice president.

"I never want anyone to feel unwanted or without an essential, and I've been there. ... Everybody deserves a chance, and sometimes they just need to be shown unconditional love with dignity," she told Homes.com.

The foundation has assisted 15,000 individuals and raised $565,000 since opening in 2014, aiding 143 children this year alone.

Ken Larson founded the Northern Lights Foundation thirteen years after his newborn daughter, Nicole, passed away,

Larson, a former dentist, is now leveraging his career as a real estate agent in Duluth, Minnesota, to grow his organization that offers grants to families who have a child with a life-threatening illness.

“We give them financial assistance,” Larson told Homes.com in an interview. “They can use it for travel. Some use it for rent, for mortgages, whatever they need.”

Larson started the foundation in 2006, and it has since raised some $1.5 million and issued roughly 300 grants to local families. Larson said he hopes winning the Good Neighbor award will help him raise awareness for his organization.

“It’s going to help the exposure,” he said. “We can raise more money together, give more grants to families with a child facing the unimaginable.”

In 1998, Ray Manzoni was walking out of church when he learned that his friend, Christopher Pendergast, had received an ALS diagnosis.

“I said, ‘How can I help? I've helped people buy and sell houses. How can I help you in this world?” Manzoni, a real estate agent in Mount Sinai, New York, told Homes.com in an interview.

And thus began ALS Ride for Life. Shortly after his diagnosis, Pendergast traveled from New York to Washington, D.C. — in his wheelchair. To date, the organization has raised more than $14 million that has gone toward helping ALS patients with their day-to-day life.

After Pendergast passed away in 2020, Manzoni assumed his role as president and chairman of the organization. His 57 years as a real estate agent have fueled his success with ALS Ride for Life.

“As a Realtor, you learn and get comfortable working with people,” he said. “So now, in the nonprofit world, networking with the people that we worked with, and others soliciting sponsorships, and building a team to help in our fundraising efforts, is powerful.”

Manzoni said he’ll use his award to help raise awareness for his organization.

“I want this platform from the National Association of Realtors to hopefully help us grow into even more accomplishments, and we're working on that every moment here and at home,” he said.

At the age of 11, Kristen Amerson took her own life.

Her brother, JacQuan Winters, describes Amerson as "someone that helped people." He founded the Kristen Amerson Youth Foundation to further her impact by providing suicide prevention resources, mental health education and advocacy for children and their families.

Winters then became a real estate agent in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to further his work as executive director of the foundation.

Winters points to a story that was shared with him years after his sister's passing, when a new girl at school cried on the bus about her hair.

"She said, 'Your sister was one of the first people that befriended me. ... She fixed my hair ... I received so many compliments that day from the hairstyle your sister created for me. Kristen was just a good friend, a good person and she cared,'" Winters told Homes.com.

Winters has written two books with Amerson as the main character, teaching readers how to navigate hardships and cope with negative emotions. He also speaks to classrooms through the foundation that has reached 20,000 children.

Starting the foundation, in large part, was to keep Amerson's memory alive.

"And now that she's gone, 11 years later, her name is being recognized on a national platform," said Winters.