Conscious Real Estate Donates to MaxFund

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Why Is It Called MaxFund?

In 1988, Dr. Suro owned a large veterinary practice in the Denver area and worked alongside his wife, program manager. Nanci Suro. The practice was thriving and the couple had just expanded to be a 24-hour practice. Immediately, the Suros discovered they had a “problem” on their hands. What should they do with the animals that good samaritans were bringing in? Most clinics and shelters were euthanizing the animals without owners immediately, unable and unwilling to foot the animals’ medical costs.

When “Max” came in one day after being hit by a car, the Suros began a fund from a fishbowl, called on service donations from local vets, held a yard sale and eventually came up with the money. To their delight and surprise, they had collected even more fund than they needed for Max’s successful treatment and so they continued the process for the next animal and so on and so on.

Max!

What Happened to Max?

Max healed and the Suro’s lived with him for 13 more years! Max inspired the Suros to continue and so they did. After some time, they were able to gain press coverage and even had an offer from a large corporation to buy their teeny nonprofit. Well, once the corporation realized how expensive some of the medical procedures were, they backed out. The organization was fully run by volunteers until 1995. Now, the organization relies on the generous support of the public which has come from the legacy of estates, generous living contributions, service donations by local vets, and donations from socially conscious business (yup like us here at Conscious Real Estate!!).

 

Why Do We Love MaxFund?

Well one reason is this sweet little bitty of a pup. Her only problem? Well, she has two in these pictures. Two broken legs. Poor thing. Thanks to MaxFund she was able to get the medical attention that she needed and…well…a donation wasn’t enough for us in this case. Conscious Real Estate owner and founder Allison Parks ended up adopting her to add to her pack. She’s had a lot of happy days since then!

Who rescued who? She’s perfect!

Another amazing fact about MaxFund? Founder Dr. Suro got his own new lease on life when he was donated a kidney from Hillary Rettig who said she chose to donate to Dr. Suro because of all the lives of animals he’s saved!!! – MaxFund

What Does MaxFund Do?

MaxFund offers low-cost medical services for injured and ill animals as well as preventative services like spay, neuter and vaccinations. They also offer adoption services for dogs and cats, including those with special needs. Every animal deserves a home, they say.

 

“We believe in second chances. And, we’ll continue to follow our mission in saving injured animals without owners. No matter how large we become we get, in a real sense we will always be “the small shelter that makes a big difference.” We are growing and have been fortunate to receive many wonderful donations and estates, which we have turned into capital improvements.” – MaxFund

 

MaxFund Needs You + Ways to Give

As usual, there are many ways to give to this nonprofit. You can connect them with sympathetic vets, donate individually, shop through Amazon Smile, volunteer, adopt a pet, or, our favorite – work with us at Conscious Real Estate. We donate 10 percent to a nonprofit of your choice after every sale. Yep, you choose who we donate to! It’s a wonderful way to celebrate your new home and give back to a cause you care about. So far we’ve donated tens of thousands to local and national nonprofits. All you have to do is work with us when you buy your next home. We have a track record of happy clients and are available when you need us. Ready to start?

Conscious Real Estate Donates to TBI:Alive!

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Have you heard of TBI:Alive?

We were lucky enough to be able to donate to this wonderful organization recently, after our clients’ purchased a home and selected this organization to receive a Conscious Real Estate donation!

TBI:Alive is comprised of brain injury survivors, impacted families, and proactive health practitioners promoting cognitive and emotinal fitness through healthy social interaction, enjoyable community activities, and engaging lifestyle tools.

A conscious focus on fundamental physical, emotional, psychological, and community health is essential to realizing stability and happiness post-trauma. Educational and recreational activities encouraging worthwhile self-regard and realistic goal-setting help to build upon each participant’s positive foundation, while sensible affirmations and constructive feedback within an engaging community serve to support ideals of acceptance and evolution following cognitive trauma.

Activities and events organized within this community all share an ardent TBI:Alive philosophy to promote:

A) Psycho-social Benefits

-Consistent group communication and support

-Engaging community activities

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B) Somatopsychic (Body-Mind) Benefits

-Promotion of physical health and stability to benefit cognitive function

-Nutritional awareness, education, and resources for functional health in daily life

-Scheduling consistent community physical activities and events

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C) Informed Personal Health Awareness through education and support, encouraging:

-Personal abilities and responsibility to encourage healthy function

-Opportunities for conscious health-promotion in every aspect of life

-The value of structured and consistent daily practice

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We are incredibly grateful for the work that this organization does in our community and we are happy for the opportunity to help support TBI:Alive! To learn more about this organization, you can follow TBI:Alive on Facebook. You can donate. And don’t forget, Conscious Real Estate always contributes 10% of agent commissions to the nonprofit of our client’s choice, so if you are selling or purchasing a home, come work with us to support TBI:Alive! Contact Allison Parks at 303-908-9873 or [email protected]

Spotlight on Sovenco | A Social Venture Company

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“How personal should I get?” asked Danielle Norris when we inquired as to the start of her socially conscious enterprise – Sovenco.

Norris calls herself an at-risk youth. At 16, she was assigned a case worker who was a beacon of light. Her name was Mary. When life for Norris seemed its bleakest, Mary spent 18 months guiding her out of that world and out of poverty. “She was everything to me,” says Norris.danielle

Danielle, Norris, Founder, Sovenco

Things changed when Danielle turned 18. Her program was shut down due to lack of funding and Mary lost her job. It was at that moment that Norris realized the injustice of the situation. Fourteen years later, one of her core values is making a difference, so that is what she sought out to do.

“With nonprofits, the biggest thing that doesn’t work is that they are not allowed to spend money on building the business. Too much time is spent fundraising instead of making an impact. Also, it’s an “us and them” model (for-profit businesses vs. nonprofits). It divides the class systems and creates inequality. There are two myths in business: that nonprofits can’t invest in overhead and that for-profits can only focus on bottom-line.”  – Danielle Norris, Sovenco

Now, Danielle runs the socially conscious consulting business, Sovenco. Business owners tend to reach out to her when they are wanting more out of their life and want to have a direct impact in the community. “We like to connect them to their purpose,” she says. “We take them through an 8-step process, which is a combination of life coaching and basic business consulting. We look at business in an holistic way and add a social enterprise twist.”

Case studies show a very direct impact on the community. One client, a social media marketing company came to Norris wanting to do good and enter the socially conscious industry. When they came to Sovenco, they weren’t making any impact. Now, they are looking at hiring underserved populations.

“We are very new in the industry. Our overall goal and big vision is to bring the concept of do good businesses to regular everyday small businesses. That every small business owner can make a small impact in the world. And it creates a more fulfilling life. In general, people have an innate need to serve others directly and it’s missing in our society,” says Norris.

And that’s where Sovenco comes in.

At Conscious Real Estate we love supporting socially conscious businesses. If you have an idea for a story on a business that is doing great things for our community, just reply here and drop us a note.

And, remember that Conscious Real Estate donates 10% of every commission to a nonprofit of our clients’ choice. Make a difference today! Referrals are the sweetest thank yous.

 

Conscious Real Estate Welcomes Elizabeth Lord to Our Team!

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We couldn’t be more thrilled to announce that Elizabeth (Ellie) Lord has chosen to be our newest broker associate.

She is passionate. She is knowledgeable. She chose to work with us because of our philanthropic business model. Let us tell you about all things Ellie…

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Elizabeth “Ellie” Lord’s personal mission statement reads; “my purpose is to create a life that is rewarding personally as well as professionally, and in return, enhance it through active community involvement.” She lives this creed every day, and through everything she does.

  Born and raised in Seattle, Ellie grew up surrounded by an amazingly supportive family and a herd of golden retrievers. After eight years in the residential design and construction industry, she moved to Denver for graduate school at the University of Denver. With a graduate degree in real estate and construction management, and a new found love of Colorado, she reestablished her award winning design business, Elizabeth P. Lord Residential Design LLC, in Denver. In addition to her extensive experience in residential design, and her background in construction, she offers her real estate clients the opportunity to use her wealth of knowledge to achieve the maximum value out of their home in preparation of selling, or insight into making a potential house their personalized space with design advice.

In her spare time, Ellie enjoys traveling the world and thrives on experiencing new adventures. After participating in a Habitat for Humanity build in New Zealand, she chose to live a life of gratitude and has continually pursued opportunities to give back to her community. She volunteers with the Golden Retriever Rescue of the Rockies and the local Habitat for Humanity chapter, as well as donating design services to charitable organizations. She recently purchased a condo in Wash Park, and adopted a Bernedoodle, who will be trained to become a therapy dog.

 

Change the World with Conscious Real Estate

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How much do YOU want to change the world?

Here at Conscious Real Estate, we want to change the world a lot. Let’s talk about what we do… We help people buy and sell houses and we love that!  But we took it one step further and created a philanthropic real estate business model.

We are Colorado’s only real estate social enterprise.  Each time one of our clients buys or sells a home with us, we contribute 10% of our own commission to the nonprofit of our clients’ choice.

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Here is some sad news… On the day of this writing, August 21, 2015, Conscious Real Estate did NOT close on any homes.  Yet a quick look at the MLS states that 299 homes sold on this day in Colorado.  Our owner, Allison Parks, decided to tally up the total sales prices of 100 of these homes.  Taking the total of these 100 sales into consideration and considering that commission is negotiable, our estimate is that if those buyers and sellers would have used Conscious Real Estate on just one side of the deal, that would have generated around $75,000 to $100,000 for nonprofits.  That’s right… we could donate that in just one day of real estate sales.

Imagine what a DIFFERENCE that $75,000 to $100,000 could make in our local and global community from JUST… ONE… DAY of people buying and selling houses with Conscious Real Estate.  And that’s if we only represent 1/3 of Colorado’s home sales from that one day…

Now imagine if those buyers and sellers used Conscious Real Estate for those 100 home sales each day next week, just Monday through Friday.  That would create $375,000 to $500,000 for nonprofits in just one week.  What difference do you think that could make?

In one month, it would create $1,500,000 to $2,000,000 for nonprofits.  What difference would THAT make?

In a year, that would create $18,000,000 to $24,000,000. That is an enormous amount of money to give away and quite frankly, nothing would make us happier.

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Every day at Conscious Real Estate is Colorado Gives Day.

We’re here, folks.  We are willing to do the work.  We are willing to grow as big as we need to, we are willing to hire more people and create jobs, and we will always keep our commitment to customer service our top priority.  We know that, without our clients, we are nothing. We will keep our communities close to our heart every step of the way and implement innovative business practices that increase the greater social good.

If you would like to change the world with us and you have a friend who is planning to buy or sell a home, let them know that they can make a difference with their next real estate transaction if they work with Conscious Real Estate.  For more information, please contact Allison Parks at 303-908-9873 or [email protected].

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Denver Social Enterprise and “Do Good” Business Meetup

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A good friend of Conscious Real Estate has started a new meet up group for Denver Social Enterprises and “Do Good” businesses.  Changemaker Danielle Norris of Sovenco has started the “Denver Social Enterprise and Do Good Meetup” to bring together like-minded business owners or entrepreneurs who would like guidance and inspiration in starting a purpose-driven business.

 

“Social Enterprises are businesses whose primary purpose is the common good. They use the methods and disciplines of business and the power of the marketplace to advance their social, environmental and human justice agendas.” – SEA

We live in a world where profit has been the only bottom line and has been for many years, but things are changing. People realize the system is broken and inadequate to address the numerous problems facing this world.

Are you a business owner? How is your business making the world a better place? Does your business have a purpose besides just making money? Or maybe, you would like your business to have more than just a profit-driven motive. Come join our group and share your stories of IMPACT. How is your business making the world a better place? We believe the combination of money and purpose is the most powerful thing on the planet. So, what is the impact you want to leave on this world? If you’re looking to have your business leave a lasting impact on the world other than just profits and sales goals, we can help.

Our goal of this meetup group is to make this world a better place, all while increasing your profits and leaving the least negative impact on the planet. We help you build PURPOSE or support you in building a greater PURPOSE into your business model.

So, what is the impact you want to leave on this world? If you’re looking to have your business leave a positive lasting impact on the world, we can help. If you’re a little overwhelmed, no problem. If this all sounds a little froufrou, that’s fine too. Just join the group and have some great conversation, fun activities, and a strong support group, as you venture into the unknown of changing the world.

If this sounds like a group you would like to join, please join the Meetup group or the Facebook group to learn about upcoming events.  We would love to see you there!

You may already know that Conscious Real Estate is Colorado’s only philanthropic residential real estate company that contributes 10% of all commissions to the nonprofit of their clients’ choice.  If you would like to learn more about Sovenco, you may follow them on Facebook or Twitter.

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