Five District Council WLI groups were awarded WLI Hines Innovation Grants at the 2018 Fall Meeting in Boston. The awards, totaling $25,000, were presented by Sherri Schugart, President and CEO of Hines Real Estate Investment Trust, Inc, and represent the first of three years of WLI Hines Innovation grants. Read more about the winners below!

ULI “Midwest”: WLI Midwestern Regional Summit

Eight WLI chapters (Kentucky, St. Louis, Indiana, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Nashville, Memphis and Iowa) are collaborating to establish a Midwestern Regional Development Summit to foster leadership development, personal development, networking, expand professional knowledge and resources. By relying on successful WLI leadership in each District Council, combined with other professionals focused in leadership training, the Summit will include panel discussions around interesting development projects and location-unique situations from each District Council. Louisville and St. Louis will be inaugural host cities. The intent is to carry the momentum following the success of these events into an annual Summit, rotating host cities among the Midwestern ULI District Councils.

ULI Chicago: Breakthrough Series & WLI Speaker Database 

ULI Chicago’s WLI will use the funding from the Hines Innovation Grant for a three-pronged approach to a scale-able, measurable enhancement of its successful ongoing work to promote women in real estate.

1. Breakthrough Series: Launched last November, the ULI Chicago WLI Breakthrough Series honors a woman in real estate for a career breakthrough moment while also facilitating meaningful discussions between young leaders and veterans at a limited-capacity event. The events increase visibility of successful women in the industry while also providing an empowering environment for networking. The series’ content and format is in high demand: all of its events have sold out since its inception.
2. Speaker Exchange: will introduce the proven Breakthrough Series programming concept to other ULI District Councils. The grant will fund three qualified women speakers from Chicago to speak at three separate events at other ULI District Councils.
3. WLI Speaker Database: refines an existing beta into a readily searchable tool. Populated with contact information, areas of expertise, significant awards and accomplishments, and speaking credentials, of vetted, qualified women speakers. This database will provide a foundational framework to replicate the Breakthrough Series in other cities, to connect ULI District Councils via speaker exchange, and to provide more and greater speaking opportunities to leading women in real estate.

ULI Cincinnati: 100% Housing 

ULI Cincinnati WLI is collaborating with LISC (Local Initiatives Support Corporation) to address the estimated 40,000-unit deficit of affordable housing in Greater Cincinnati. As documented in a February 2017 study, “Housing Affordability in Hamilton County”, not only is there a housing deficit in the region, there are also approximately 40,000 vacant residential units. Today, organizations across the region help hundreds of households close housing gaps. However, there is no coordinated real estate plan and the fragmentation of efforts limits scale, funding and consistency. WLI is providing the program management, tools and resources to bring together 70 team members from 40 organizations to develop a sustainable plan to combat current and growing housing needs.

ULI Tampa Bay: Women Helping Women: Creating Pathways of Opportunity in Wimauma, Florida 

A top priority for the Women’s Leadership Initiative in Tampa Bay is to make a difference in the community, specifically by harnessing the expertise of our members to connect to and create opportunity for other women. In this spirit of ‘women helping women”, the WLI Tampa Bay will provide technical assistance to foster the success of an innovative new shuttle service in Wimauma, Florida – with the mission of connecting the primarily low income Hispanic female community to economic opportunity. Following the model of a Technical Assistance Panel, WLI Tampa Bay will convene top female members to provide expertise in a 2-day workshop. Recommendations will be specifically focused on:

• Strategies for ensuring safe and healthy corridors, specifically at the proposed shuttle stops
• Leveraging the increased connectivity to employment centers
• Opportunities for pedestrian and bike connections to schools, social services and other activity centers.

ULI Toronto: WLI Toronto View from the Top

WLI Toronto View from the Top is a new program, utilizing video conferencing to be launched in early 2019. It will provide an interactive platform for participants to exchange ideas with speakers (ULI Members) across North America using a webcast format. The 4-5 webcast sessions will share views about various aspects of women’s leadership and development. The target for participants is individuals in their midcareer (age 45 and below) who are inspired to elevate their career to the next level. This program will deliver on our local goals – leadership development and integrating ULI networks. The objective of this program is to expand WLI Toronto’s reach for our members locally, by engaging female leaders from across the global ULI network (e.g. New York, San Francisco, London) to participate in conversations centered around leadership, best practices and career development. We hope this program can be replicated and be expanded to other District Councils in North America, and globally. When feasible, we would like to extend the webinars to other Districts in the USA or Canada with the intention for the recorded content to be accessible online to members.

• 2 – 3 Sessions / Year with ULI Member as Speakers (webcast format)
• 2 Sessions with National Speaker / Author & Coach