Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

MAR’s efforts include the following:

• Educating our members with offerings like the virtual CE class Racism in Real Estate 

• Engaging our members in racial equity issues through its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee

• Adopting a Statement of Inclusion and Non-Discrimination which broadens the protections to additional classes including sexual orientation.

• Supporting the Minnesota Homeownership Opportunity Alliance, which focuses on helping lower income households and communities of color achieve home ownership. 

• Promoting the work of Just Deeds Coalition, which provides free legal and title services to help property owners find discriminatory covenants and discharge them from their property titles. For more information, view our MAR-Just Deeds Flyer as well as our MAR-Just Deeds Talking Points.

• Advocating for passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968 which bans discrimination in the sale, renting and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, sex, handicap or family status.

• Providing financial support for the Mapping Prejudice Project which is uncovering how racial covenants in home sales segregated neighborhoods across the Twin Cities.

Additional opportunities to learn more and become engaged in changing our systems and policies to ensure equity for all.

• Listen to Testing The Divide – A Conversation With Bill Dedman about the investigative report on discriminatory practices of REALTORS® in several communities in New York.

• Watch this documentary from Twin Cities Public Television: Jim Crow of the North – Full-Length Documentary

• TED: Help understand Racism in America

• Just Mercy: Movie based on a true story of civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson, and from a book of the same name

• 13th: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation’s prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans.

• White Fragility: Why It’s so Hard for White People to Talk About Racism – A sociologist examines the “white fragility” that prevents White Americans from confronting racism

• The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America is a nonfiction book on how American governments deliberately imposed racial segregation on metropolitan areas nationwide (New York Times Book Review).

• How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi

• Bias Override: Overcoming Barriers to Fair Housing is a video on Implicit Bias and an online test.

• NAR Fair Housing Article: An overview of restrictive covenants and the Realtor role

• Rebuilding for Racial Equality: Steps to Take Action is a video from 2020 NAR President, Vince Malta, addressing rebuilding grants and what brokers and agents can do now to help communities.

• REALTOR® Magazine – Taking Action to Make Your Business Anti-Racist: Brokers and association leaders mobilize to address racial injustices in communities around America.

Minorities are disproportionately affected by homelessness and the Minneapolis Area REALTORS® has been supporting local organizations in their housing work for more than three decades. Since 1988 the MAR Foundation has been supporting housing and housing-related needs in Minneapolis and other cities in MAR’s service region of Hennepin, Carver, Scott, Sibley and McLeod Counties. To date, the Foundation has distributed more than $1 million to non-profits that provide housing assistance to the most vulnerable in our communities.

Last spring the Foundation took the extra step to provide $40,000 in grants to eight local non-profits that experienced a surge in demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Foundation is currently assessing additional ways to respond to the affordable housing crisis in the Twin Cities.

See below for additional opportunities to donate to non-profits that are assisting in the recovery and rebuilding effort.

• Hunger Solutions: Map of where to give and get food.

• Mpls St. Paul Article: Where to Support Black-Owned Businesses in the Twin Cities

• United Way: Supports 211, a free and confidential service that helps people across North America find the local resources they need 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

• Asian Economic Development Association: One hundred percent of the donations we receive from GoFundMe will be granted to the businesses with the most need. AEDA will provide additional support to the businesses with technical assistance.

• Minneapolis Foundation: Fund for Safe Communities will support efforts to address systemic inequities and translate community anger into actions that repair the city

• Longfellow/Seward Healthy Seniors Program: Raising money to support local seniors

• The Lake Street Council: Collecting funds for local businesses along Lake Street in Minneapolis

• Ujamaa Place: A culturally-centric organization focusing on African American men who are working to overcome multiple barriers to stability assisting them in becoming productive members of society.