David Smith Homes Group started with a simple question, ‘what does it mean for David specifically to run a real estate business?’ This led to our ‘People Over Property, Always.’ approach, but it also led to what became known as ‘Advocate Agency.’
Advocate Agency
The best summary David’s given of this approach can be found below at the Inman Connect Conference in San Francisco:
Recognizing that the platform and skills we’ve built can truly be used for good we’ve always put community involvement at the heart of what we do. We’ve now raised well over $100,000+ through David Smith Homes Group for our non-profit partners and spent countless hours invested with our partners.
Below you can read about and witness through video how we’re involved:
Having served on staff at Pacific Community Church for a number of years David had the chance to see the launch of Cloverdale Community Kitchen and how it has flourished into the incredible organization it is today.
We’re regular participants in the Coldest Night of The Year walk to raise funds and welcome any and all of our clients and friends to participate with us in this.
To see just how much one walk impacted David you can see the tears flow a little here and most importantly you can see what CCK do here:
New Hope Community Services are a small non-profit that helps those fleeing terrible situations get settled here in Canada by providing housing and other resources.
It all began with our episode on New Hope for ‘The Local’:
From there we’ve hosted a number of fundraisers for New Hope, most notably ‘Realtor Monopoly,’ which has raised over $40,000 so far. You can see some of the highlights below:
Beyond hosting Realtor Monopoly, David has remained involved with New Hope and just recently brought a group of the kids to see Vancouver Football Club play – which brought great joy to the kids.
We don’t just partner with non-profits, we believe other organizations can also do great things in our community, including our local professional soccer team, Vancouver Football Club.
You can learn about our involvement with VFC here, or watch the video below to see one aspect of our partnership:
David’s initial involvement with LifeApp, a relational wellness community based out of Fort Langley, was to participate on the platform in a discussion on how business can be used for good in our community – exactly what this page is all about.
The relationship flourished from there, including serving on the Board of Directors and then Board of Advisors, advising on a couples counselling process, advising on a plan to protect policy, and most impactfully perhaps raising $30,000 to assist with a renovation project for our friends, The Bays, after a stroke changed their life as a family forever – which you can see below:
Helping provide access to mental health resources is a key component of our involvement in the community and our avenue to that has been in partnering with Pacific Coast Counselling. Mark and his team have a non-profit arm to their practice that we assist with fundraising annually. David has also served on their Board of Advisors and continues to remain available to the team to assist in any way he can.
Fraser Valley Real Estate Board
Early on in David’s real estate career he was invited to serve on the Board of Directors for the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board, where he served a two-year term with distinction. David’s primary focus during this time was to further community involvement among the 5,000 Realtors in the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board and also to spearhead a mental health program for Realtors, which unfortunately was derailed by Covid putting a freeze on spending in 2020. There remain opportunities for David to serve at the Board and it’s something he may return to in the future. We remain grateful for our partnership with FVREB and for how they serve both the community at large and our members specifically.
The Local was the initial avenue to partner with local non-profits and businesses by sharing their story with our media partners, Surrey604. We covered a diverse array of organizations from the female entrepreneurs at Ellebox all the way through to the mega-development of 3 Civic Plaza in Surrey.
You can see our initial pilot episode below:
Fort Langley Beer Festival/Brewhalla
One of our avenues for community involvement for four years was sponsoring the Fort Langley Beer & Food Festival, later renamed as ‘Brewhalla.’ Over the years we engaged in all kinds of ways, including serving our own beer, the ‘POPP – People Over Property Pilsner’ & fundraising for our partners at New Hope.
People Over Property, Always.
This is just a summary of how we’ve been involved in our community over the years, and frankly it barely scratches the surface.
Each of us is dedicated to extending our ‘People Over Property, Always.’ to our clients individually but also to our communities collectively.
If it’s important to you that the people you trust with your real estate needs give back to the community, this is more than just us slapping a small donation from every sale, we’re genuinely dedicated to making our communities better in a robust, sacrificial, and well-rounded way!
If you’re looking to buy and/or sell, complete these typeforms today and we’ll be in touch very shortly: