In 2020, as the U.S. once again confronted its history of discrimination, companies stepped up to say they needed to play their part to foster change.

Business leaders from every corner of the American economy released statements promising to examine their organization’s internal biases and to initiate a deeper effort to evolve their hiring practices. Many in commercial real estate made similar pledges, and while there has been progress since last year, substantial change remains on the horizon.

Bisnow is committed to “hold this industry accountable to its collective desire to be a more diverse and equitable industry,” which is why it also wants to spotlight those who are making a real effort to spur evolution.

Today, Bisnow launches The Rise Initiative, a new program that will shine a light on the organizations that are making measurable progress on the march toward a more inclusive and equitable real estate industry. Who are the people and the companies that motivate and inspire us to do more — and how can we learn from them and apply them to our own careers?

Bisnow’s mission has always been to inform, connect and advance the commercial real estate industry to do more business. With The Rise Initiative, Bisnow intends to highlight the positive strides the industry is making to reshape the real estate community. The goal is to inspire others, share paths of success and create a higher standard for all of commercial real estate to rise towards.

Bisnow will recognize progress in one category:

Firm-Level Excellence: Recognizes initiatives that have measurably contributed to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion across an entire organization. These can include recruitment and retention initiatives, programs that foster equality of opportunity within a company culture, including mentoring programs and more. More details can be found here.

Eligibility: Firms, industry associations, not-for-profits and government agencies that operate within or serve the CRE industry anywhere in the contiguous U.S.

Steering Committee: The Council of Urban Real Estate helped organize the committee and will independently judge all entries. Bisnow staff will not appraise any of the submissions.

• Devon Prioleau, Director, MACRO 

• Sonya Rocvil, Principal, Bedrock Real Estate Investors

• Desmonde Monroe, CEO, The Monroe Group

• Daniel Chatters, Aviation Compliance Manager, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

• Sam Chandan, Silverstein Chair and Academic Dean, NYU SPS Schack Institute of Real Estate

• Lynn Reyes, co-founder, pürEpiphany 

• Kimberly Dowdell, principal, HOK

Submission Guidelines: To put your initiative forward, please enter here. Bisnow’s steering committee is looking for more than just goodwill; they want to hear specific stories of how a company or organization has made changes — but to be clear: concise, data-driven results will be more heavily weighted. Submissions will be open until Jan. 28, 2021.