PGIM Real Estate, the $206.8 billion real estate investment and financing business of Madison-based PGIM, recently announced partnerships with five new organizations, underscoring the firm’s commitment to serving the communities in which it operates and invests and advancing racial justice and equality.
A total of $150,000 has been invested in these organizations to further drive awareness of each organization’s mission and encourage volunteerism.
PGIM Real Estate has existing multiyear engagements with organizations like YouthBuild and KIPP, providing youth in underserved communities with better access to training, education and career opportunities within the real estate industry. Now, the firm is supporting five new nonprofit organizations to help advocate for racial equity and social justice in the U.S.:
- Operation HOPE, whose mission is to expand economic opportunity, making free enterprise work for everyone;
- Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs, an economic mobility engine for the community driving Black entrepreneurs and small business owners to innovate, grow, create jobs and build wealth;
- Shelters to Shutters, an organization dedicated to transition individuals and families experiencing homelessness to economic self-sufficiency by providing career training, employment and housing opportunities;
- Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, named after civil rights hero Ella Baker, organizes with Black, brown and low-income people to build power and prosperity in California communities;
- New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, which works to empower people of color by building reparative systems that create wealth, transform justice and harness democratic power — from the ground up — in New Jersey.
Programming will aim to further educate PGIM Real Estate employees by driving awareness of each organization’s mission and encouraging volunteerism, ultimately maximizing benefit to each organization’s community through a tailored approach.
Earlier this year, PGIM Real Estate affirmed its commitment to advancing diversity, equity & inclusion in naming Christy Lockridge, a 30-year industry veteran, to be its first chief diversity, equity & inclusion officer. The newly created DEI Office, chaired by Lockridge, focuses on developing and implementing DEI strategy internally and externally.
“We are thrilled to announce these exciting new community partnerships that demonstrate our unwavering commitment to promoting values of equity and inclusion in the communities where we operate and live,” Lockridge stated. “PGIM Real Estate has made its social and environmental consciousness clear with global ESG investments, and the decision to expand its community partnerships underscores the firm’s desire to support these values at home.”
