December 29, 2006

Local Windermere Realtors give back to the Evergreen community

‘The Great Commission Giveaway’ delivers an innovative and powerful fundraising option for local schools

‘The Great Commission Giveaway’ is a novel and creative approach to school fundraising, designed to benefit both homeowners planning for a real estate transaction and the schools that serve the Evergreen area.

The program was introduced in 2000 by Scott and Diane Grant, Bonnie Griffith, and Ron Jones. Under ‘The Great Commission Giveaway’ program, a local school makes arrangements to participate with one of the Windermere Realtors and promotes the program as part of its fundraising activities. For example, if ‘The Great Commission Giveaway’ is a part of a fundraising auction, the amount of the winning bid will represent the amount of commission the homeowner will ultimately pay for the sale or purchase of their home, and that amount is then donated to the school by the participating realtor.

To date, ‘The Great Commission Giveaway’ has donated over $175,000 to local Evergreen schools. This year, the program is being expanded to include fellow realtor Kerry Sexton and for the first time, will allow homebuyers to participate as well as home sellers.

According to Diane Grant of the Windermere team of Grant, Griffith and Jones, “The overriding goal was to help raise money for our local schools. We all live within this amazing community and our children attend our local schools. This seemed like a nice way to be able to give back to and continue to enhance our neighborhoods.”

There are two main beneficiaries of ‘The Great Commission Giveaway’ program:

The person winning ‘The Great Commission Giveaway’ benefits because the program is purchased at a discount and the buyer or seller then saves money on their upcoming real estate transaction. As Scott Grant explains, “If a seller has a home worth $1.1 million dollars, the usual realtor sales commission would be $33,000. However, if the homeowner wins ‘The Great Commission Giveaway’ and ends up paying, for example, $15,000, they will have saved $18,000 on the purchase or sale of their home.”

The sponsoring school also wins under ‘The Great Commission Giveaway’ because the commission is paid to the school (instead of the realtor) upon close of the home sale, generating a sizable contribution to the school’s fundraising efforts.

“This program provides a nice advantage to buyers or sellers in today’s market because it guarantees a lower cost of home sale or purchase, while maintaining the premium level of service provided by a full-service real estate team,” said Ron Jones, of Grant, Griffith and Jones.

His partner, Bonnie Griffith added, “When it first began, we offered this as a program focused solely on home sellers, but we had many requests to extend it to buyers and are pleased to be able to expand it this year.”

Over the past five years, ‘The Great Commission Giveaway’ program has been implemented at three local school auctions – J.F. Smith Elementary, Silver Oak Elementary and Cadwallader Elementary.

“It is very easy to add this program to a school’s fundraising plan,” said Kerry Sexton of Windermere. “Give any of us a call and we would be glad to help out.”

The Silver Creek Valley/Evergreen Windermere office and their Realtors are willing to provide one commission per school, per year.

According to Paula Thomas, Co-Chair of this year’s Silver Oak Elementary fundraising auction, “The commitment shown by the Realtors of our community is inspiring. Programs such as ‘The Great Commission Giveaway’ have really helped to contribute to the success of our past events.”

For more information on ‘The Great Commission Giveaway’ program, please contact Scott and Diane Grant, Bonnie Griffith, or Ron Jones at (408) 239-0990 or Kerry Sexton at (408) 476-4844.

For further information on the Silver Oak Elementary School fundraising auction scheduled for Saturday, March 3, 2007, please visit the Silver Oak Elementary Partnership (SOEP) Auction website at www.soepauction.com.

For information regarding Cadwallader Elementary School’s fundraiser please contact the school at (408) 270-4950.