Last spring, the REALTOR® Association of Central Massachusetts (RACM) was looking for a way to engage more members in fair housing education. It also wanted to increase interaction with members of the local chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP.) By hosting a Fair Housing Trivia Night for both organizations at a lively local brewery, it hit on a winning solution where all the participants could meet, eat, drink, and test their knowledge of a subject that is anything but trivial.
Government Affairs Director Konstantina Choros explains that the idea developed from a brainstorming session she had with a colleague who teaches some of the association’s CE classes. “We were specifically thinking of how we could make good use of the REALTOR® Party’s Fair Housing grant program. Rent out a theater to screen the Long Island Divided documentary? Bring in an expert speaker from NAR?” A trivia night event appealed to RACM’s CEO, and her instinct was right, says Choros: “Taking the event out of a classroom setting attracted members who had never been to one of our education programs, and its interactive nature meant that our members and our guests from NAHREP had the opportunity to engage in discussions about their experiences and understanding of the fair housing issues presented by each question, as well as plenty of time to mingle before and after the game.”
“Arranging the event was really very easy,” she adds. “All you need is a space. We were lucky to have a brewery in town that offered us its cool upstairs room at no charge with a minimum food order. So, it was automatically a fun, free weeknight event for all involved. We requested advance registration for planning purposes, but still welcomed walk-ins. As people arrived, they were given a drink token and assigned a team number. By creating random teams and breaking up office groups that arrived together, we promoted new acquaintances and helped to smooth the way for those who arrived alone.”
They promoted the event through email, social media and individual committee communication channels. Thanks to a close existing relationship with NAHREP, it was just a matter of reaching out to their leadership and following up with the event flyer.
The hardest part was coming up with the program’s twenty questions, notes Choros – plus a tie-breaker, just in case. She consulted NAR’s Fairhaven program, and its other online resources, as well as her own books from when she was preparing for licensure as a REALTOR® in Massachusetts. The event’s emcee, a member with disc-jockey experience, read each question and gave the six teams about a minute to deliberate over their answers, which they penciled on a provided sheet. As they wrestled with prompts from ‘What are the protected demographic classes at the federal level?’ to ‘What are the fourteen protected classes in Massachusetts?’ to ‘Can you say ‘_____’ in a listing?’ things got pretty lively, says Choros.
“Some of the correct answers were, in fact, shocking, such as the fact that in Massachusetts, recipients of public assistance, a protected class, are discriminated against 86% of the time when seeking housing. Participants were up in arms, telling me I got it wrong; I had to say, ‘Guys, I’m taking this straight from the Commonwealth’s data!’”
The Fair Housing Grant covered the food and beverages. Funds from the NAR grants programs may not be used for prizes, so RACM paid for the $10 Starbucks gift cards awarded to each member of the winning team. The real win, though, was an increased understanding of fair housing law at the state and national level among real estate professionals in central Massachusetts: even the winning team missed one question, reports Choros, which means that everyone playing learned something about fair housing. On the strength of the program’s success, she says, RACM is considering future fair housing events with an emphasis on fun: a Jeopardy game, perhaps?
To learn more about how the REALTOR® Association of Central Massachusetts is finding engaging ways to educate members and industry colleagues about Fair Housing law, contact Government Affairs Director Konstantina Choros at konstantina@isosrealty.com or 508.439.9184.
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