Vibrant Realty believes firmly in building a better community, we try our hardest to go above & beyond with giving back to our surrounding communities. We work with several non profit organizations including but not limited to Kids n Kinship, Missing Children Minnesota, Women & Wine Warriors For A Cause, Be The Match, Red Cross Blood Drives, Amber Alert Minnesota, WetheP,  & many more. We have qualified to be nominated for SPAAR Better Communities Award, with that we have been receiving incredible heartfelt nomination letters that we would love to share.

I'd like to nominate Lisa Stevens of Vibrant Reality for the SPAAR Better Communities Award. 

I've had the honor of discussing her vision for Vibrant Realty since before she started the business. She founded it on the specific principals of doing as she'd done in the past more intentionally and publicly. 

For years she worked with communities and citizens who struggled to secure to fair housing, quietly happily taking much of her own time helping many people -- without seeking awards or attention for it. Not long after she and her husband Lance joined me at We the People: The New Movement. The cross-partisan event focused on cross-sector common good, she began conceiving the mission of Vibrant. At which Lisa and Lance were among the inaugural contributors to the national Commonwealth Partnership, which was launched publicly at the White House a year later.  

This was around the time when our country was becoming aware of massive inequities and harm done by mortgage bankers. Things Lisa had seen all along and had been fighting against in behalf of her clients--some of whom didn't offer enough profits for other agents to bother with; and whom were vulnerable targets for predatory lenders, She navigated the many obstructions with them, as their partner. Not only a sales person.  

She decided to build Vibrant on that foundation and with a similar, but significantly expanded, ethos. To "do more" more consciously -- and, as she told me at the time -- be an early adapter of conscious capitalism business practices. We discussed the value in her replicating and scaling her abilities and methods in order to insuring it was far more than she in her company -- and even where possible company partners and peers -- doing what amounts to socio-economic development work. 

In short, she sees what few others do. Like Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company who saw how staff rose to higher levels of performance when they were paid a truly "living," wage and embraced as equally deserving of sharing the parks and recreation previously reserved only the wealthy class, or, like the Dayton brothers who founded Daytons, the company best known for founding community-friendly Target Stores; or Bill George, the Harvard professor who headed up Minnesota's Medtronic and is now known best for his "True North," theories, books and nationwide groups, Lisa sees that by developing leaders both in and outside of her company, she, her family and friends benefit exponentially--in compensation that go well beyond the commission check. She understands from her own efforts that every person has something of value to contribute. And, she does much to insure people who might not know or learn this do, and from there, have ways to express and engage their value and abilities in ways that raise up their own sense of dignity while raising up the civic dignity of the places they live and work in.

She's invited me to numerous events for such groups in the communities that Vibrant serves. I'm eager to go to an upcoming one that addresses youth lost in the shuffle and floundering due largely to socio-economic and often hard to discern but increasingly clear race-based disparities that are no fault of their own.

I am proud of the work that Lisa and Vibrant Reality is doing in our and other communities. It reinforces my beliefs and work that focuses on all citizens critical change agents for improving our communities, country and world. They deserve this award. And so do our communities. With it, Lisa can continue to lead her company to deepen their efforts and outcomes to provide positive solutions and powerful possibilities for citizens beyond only Vibrant's customers. I'll be supporting them. I hope you will as well by recognizing the important work they are doing!

Sincerely,

Andrea Morisette Grazzini

Founder & CEO WetheP, Inc.

Founder & Organizer, Me to We Racial Healing

Founder & Publisher, DynamicShift

Co-founder & (former) Officer PeopleNet Communications Corporation