Fairway Is A Good Ally
ERG for LGBTQIA+ employees keeps them invested in the company
Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation
Madison, Wisconsin
Company CEO: Steve Jacobson
FairwayMC.com
Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation has been at the forefront of treating LGBTQIA+ employees with respect and providing support not offered on a significant scale in the mortgage industry.
In November 2021, it launched the FairwayPride Employee Resource Group. It has almost 100 members and meets quarterly. FairwayPride has developed into an incredible platform of support for employees providing an opportunity for members to share stories, resources, and learn from one another through various educational topics. Some of the topics covered in the meetings have included Gender Pronouns, Pride Flags, Allyship, Volunteering and Outreach in the LGBTQ+ community, National Coming Out Day, Transgender Day of Remembrance, Pride Month, and Outreach strategies and tips to reach the LGBTQIA+ community within the mortgage industry.
“I began my mortgage career with Fairway in 2017, tried another company in 2021 and came home to Fairway in March of 2023. I was so thrilled to see the FairwayPride Employee Resource Group was available and joined right away. This community means a lot to me because I know without a doubt that I am accepted and celebrated by my company, and it’s just another reason why I’m here to stay,” said Ariel Zufelt, loan officer.
On June 6, 2023, the company hosted its 1st Annual Virtual FairwayPride Happy Hour Event which was open to everyone at Fairway Independent Mortgage. It consisted of a trivia activity, a guest speaker who discussed how to be a good ally, an additional guest speaker who highlighted a LGBTQ+ youth nonprofit — one-n-ten, breakout room activities, sharing accomplishments by the FairwayPride group in 2023, and more! It is in the process of planning the 2nd annual event.
The response to the inaugural event was overwhelming. A post-event survey showed 100% of attendees said the Virtual Pride Event was a valuable use of their time. Below are a couple of comments shared in the survey:
• “Liked learning about one-n-ten and the other group members was amazing! I look forward to becoming a better ally!”
• “This was a reminder of how important community and support are to not only ourselves but to others that you would not expect. Making small adjustments to simple things like the language we use surrounding gender, pronouns, spouses, etc. makes a big difference even if it seems small to us.”
In addition to providing a community for the LGBTQIA+ employees, the FairwayPride Group strives to be more than just a support group. In today’s difficult market in the mortgage industry, Fairway wants to encourage its employees to be more open and courageous in building stronger relationships with all communities it serves, especially the underserved communities. In October 2023, it hosted a call that featured a Fairway branch manager and loan officers who discussed outreach strategies and tips to reach the LGBTQ+ community and better serve them to their dreams of homeownership.
Also, in 2022, Fairway took steps to provide additional benefits to help LGBTQ+ employees. Fairway launched the Family Building Benefit Program, which does not require a diagnosis of infertility to participate in. This removed the barrier for LBGTQ+ participants so that Fairway could support all its employees’ paths to parenthood. The program supports the diverse needs of all employees living in traditional, same-sex, or alternative families.
Newrez ‘Cares Fiercely’
LGBTQ+ causes are supported with 100% matching donations and more
Newrez
Fort Washington, Pennsylvania
Company CEO/ President: Baron Silverstein
Newrez.com
Newrez’s support for LGBTQ+ employees is significant and wide-ranging: from life-changing health benefit coverage to an active employee resource group (ERG). Its health benefits include care for transitioning employees and promoting sexual health. The PRIDE ERG is dedicated to fostering a community of allyship and camaraderie for LGBTQ+ team members and has 402 active employees. They created a comprehensive and first-of-its-kind benefits resource guide for trans people within the company, along with HR training to supplement and educate managers on the sensitivities surrounding transitioning employees and their HR business partners.
The PRIDE ERG is especially active during Pride Month, hosting LGBTQ+ history seminars, guest speakers from support and counseling partners like Over the Rainbow, sponsored performances from LGBTQ+ entertainers for employees, and onsite celebrations for employees of all backgrounds to participate in and learn about Pride. Newrez PRIDE has even been featured in Greenville, South Carolina’s and Dallas, Texas’ local Pride parades with booths, giveaways, and marketing flyers that share Newrez’s vision of equality and inclusion.
Newrez is proud of its track record, including philanthropic contributions and empowering our workforce through education and resources, which set the standard for inclusion and equality within the mortgage industry. This includes investing in education for its sales force (and all employees) on pronoun importance and use, as well as updating and integrating internal systems to reflect different pronouns that represent all of the unique employees enterprise-wide.
Never missing a chance to empower its employees, Newrez’s corporate giving program matches all donations to eligible nonprofits (including those that support LGBTQ+ causes and organizations) at 100%, up to $1,000 annually per employee. Wherever possible, the mortgage lender/servicer shares opportunities for employees to volunteer in the community, including at local Pride parades where the company has a presence. In fact, one of its employees successfully applied for — and was awarded — a Newrez Philanthropic Grant on behalf of a local grassroots LGBTQ+ organization, Upstate Pride. Upstate Pride works to empower people of all gender expressions and sexual identities in the Upstate of South Carolina by promoting acceptance through education, advocacy, and networking.
Newrez strives to lead by example through its company values to “care fiercely” and “help everyone.” The PRIDE ERG hosted a “21-Day Ally Challenge” to educate colleagues in the ally community and empower LGBTQ+ individuals in the workforce. The challenge fostered a culture of belonging by leveraging the scientifically proven fact that it takes 21 days to form a new habit, build a new thought process, or learn a new perspective. By designing 21 conscious steps to learn more about the LGBTQ+ community, PRIDE ERG helped others form a mindset that will keep allyship and empathy at the forefront of our thoughts and actions. Each challenge aimed to sensitize, educate, and spread awareness about the LGBTQ+ community to participants.
Along with the Ally Challenge, Newrez highlights important days in the LGBTQ+ community all year long, along with an array of educational programs and supportive counseling that’s available to our employees. For the Transgender Day of Remembrance, PRIDE focused on the history and purpose of the holiday and discussed different famous trans people in history. Newrez welcomed a guest speaker, Zakia McKensey, founder and director of the nonprofit Nationz Foundation of Virginia, who shared her personal life story living as a trans woman.
Pride Shines Through In LGBTQ+ Commitment
Company focuses on diversity and inclusion for employees and customers
Pride Lending LLC
Las Vegas, Nevada
Broker/Owner: Andrew Dort
PrideLending.com
Pride Lending has a basic mission: a commitment to the LGBTQ+ community. This is the Las Vegas-based company’s founding principle and is even present in its brand identity. It states, “The mission of Pride Lending is to empower underserved communities, with a special emphasis on the LGBTQ+ Community, to build wealth through homeownership by giving people the education and mortgage necessary to become homeowners.”
Diversity and inclusion are two of Pride Lending’s hallmarks. Its robust hiring process ensures employees come from various backgrounds transcending race, sexual orientation, gender identity, and beliefs.
Andrew Dort, broker/owner, says, “We believe that our company should look like the people we serve and embrace the beauty in diversity. We also, in addition to our internal policies, are actively engaged in external efforts to promote Queer-equality in the mortgage community at large. Many of our employees serve on multiple boards of LGBTQ+ focused organizations and are, as a company, a certified Business Enterprise by the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce.”
Dort is proud that his company’s actions have been recognized. “We have aggressive philanthropic goals supporting various charities and organizations that assist the LGBTQ+ community,” he said. Pride Lending has been named Business Partner of the Year by Compete. Sports. Diversity., an organization dedicated to promoting LGBTQ+ equality in sports. Also, many of its employees engage in educational sessions (offered for free) to help prospective LGBTQ+ homebuyers learn about how to leverage the power of homeownership into generational wealth.
In an article in National Mortgage Professional Magazine last year, it was mentioned how Pride’s website boasts a rainbow-accented logo of a lion. A certification accompanies the site’s bright colors as an LGBT-owned enterprise by the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce and customer testimonials.
Dort’s business from the surface level is enthusiastic about serving a community he is also a part of. But Dort didn’t wake up one day and decide to start a company based on the principles of pride and safe spaces. He started as a receptionist in his early 20s at All Western, a Denver-based mortgage company, and slowly worked his way into a processing role. He transferred to Colten Mortgage — also in Denver — as a loan processor, eventually becoming a loan officer.
Colten transferred Dort to Las Vegas as a branch manager and in 2020, he decided to start his own company. “I knew I wanted to do my own thing at some point,” Dort said. “I’m a part of the LGBTQ+ community and I know that there’s a shared life experience with others in the community. I figured that some [LGBTQ+] clients would feel comfier making the biggest purchase of their life with someone in their own community.”
Dort saw a need for a niche in the industry after he witnessed others in the community face difficulties working with lenders while trying to buy a home. “I’m luckier than most. I’m a white man and I often can pass for being straight, and for me, I personally had no issues buying a home,” he said. “But when we compare that to my husband, who is non-binary and gender fluid, he probably would have had a harder time buying a home and connecting with a lender if he bought alone.”
