KC CREW
In Search of a Vessel

Imagine you’re sitting with a group of women who work in commercial real estate and someone says, “Gee, it’s almost October. You know what that means.” And someone else in the group says, “Yes, it’s almost National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.”

Now imagine you’re sitting with a group of men who work in commercial real estate and someone says, “Gee, the week of February 24 just slipped by us. You know what that means.” And someone else says, “Yes, the Olympics are over, but the pitchers have reported for spring training.” Then you remind the men that the week of Feb. 24, 2002, was National Prostate Cancer Awareness Week, and they all look down at their shoes.

You do not have to imagine that the first group exists because it does, and it is called Kansas City Commercial Real Estate Women—KC CREW for short. Part of the mission of that group, in addition to fostering the professional growth and success of its 60 members, is to work with the community to address the serious health and economic issues that face women and girls.

In the three years that KC CREW has held October fund-raisers for the Heartland Division of the American Cancer Society, for instance, it has netted nearly $4,000 for breast-cancer research. Each year the group has had the misfortune and blessing of having a colleague willing to educate the audience about breast cancer based on her personal experience.

CREW has also worked with the Women’s Employment Network to collect work clothing for women emerging from WEN’s career-retraining program, and it has donated stacks of towels and toiletries to Synergy Services, which specializes in family crisis intervention.

KC CREW is in search of a new vessel for its philanthropic efforts, however. While the group plans to continue its work raising money for cancer research, it wants to team with other corporate sponsors to increase its influence. It is also reviewing opportunities beyond fund raising that will give CREW members a chance to teach and mentor women and girls.

“We look for organizations we can really make an impact on,” says Sibyl Patton, director of the Community Services Committee for KC CREW this year. Dee Evans, former director of the committee, agrees. Noting that five-year-old KC CREW is a relatively young association, she says, “We’re looking for fledgling nonprofits benefitting women and girls that we can grow with.”

This focus reflects that of the 43-chapter, 4,900-member CREW Network, of which KC CREW is a part. The organization-wide CREW Foundation provides grants to benefit women’s and girls’ programs that promote economic self-sufficiency and self-determination.

The danger of recognizing the philanthropic accomplishments of women in the same pages that we recognize the professional accomplishments of their male counterparts,

of course, is to subliminally diminish women’s career achievements. Over 70 percent of CREW Network members are presidents, CEOs and principals of their firms. Members average 14 years of experience in their field, and last year their annual incomes averaged $119,000.

KC CREW members specialize in environmental engineering, construction, brokerage and development, architecture, property management, title insurance, appraising, law and finance. The women of CREW—in Kansas City and across North America—have learned to succeed in one of the most male-dominated industries in the world. Now it’s time to pass along their knowledge.

To say that men are more involved in career than community is to perpetuate a false stereotype, just as it is to say women are more involved in the reverse. Both men and women today are chanting the mantra of maintaining “balance” between the two. But as far as commercial real estate goes, only women have created a CREW to make it happen.