Charitable Realty plans grand opening of new Aledo location

Lori Fowler was living a completely satisfied life as a tenured college professor working alongside the college president when there was a “knock at the door.”

“God kind of plucked me out of my role and said, ‘You’re not doing this anymore,” Fowler said.

She was teaching a class and the students were challenging her — something she once enjoyed — but it wasn’t working for her this time. She gave in, and immediately thought “oh, no, something changed.”

“I went to the college president that day and I said, ‘I think I have to go, I don’t care anymore. I think my time here is done. And it’s time for me to go.’”

Fowler’s dad had been a real estate broker since 1971, and she had received her license before she quit teaching.

“And in the interim, I had built so much relationship, teaching sociology with nonprofit, that I wanted to continue that and I didn’t really know how to bridge nonprofit with real estate,” Fowler said.

So she formed Charitable Realty, based on the idea that when a person closes on a transaction, they get to choose a charity. And Charitable Realty donates a portion of their commission to that charity.

To date they have given away more than $697,000 to everything from Parker County Center of Hope and A Wish With Wings to animal shelters, Cook Children’s Hospital, Alzheimer’s Association, and many more.

“We’ve given to every dog breed organization you can imagine, we’ve given overseas, given to several churches, we give a lot to the local Aledo community,” Fowler said. “We’re big supporters of Cook Children’s Hospital, we’re partners with Habitat for Humanity and Ronald McDonald House.”

Any 501(c)(3) non-profit or church is eligible for donations.

Fowler said the average real estate transaction is $275,000, so it takes a lot of contributions to a lot of organizations to reach the $697,000 level.

“It’s been super rewarding,” Fowler said. “Tithing back to the community is what we say that we’re doing.”

Charitable Realty has an average of 45-50 realtors, and now has realtors in Midland, Odessa, and an office in Amarillo.

“One thing that we do differently is for new realtors, we train them through a mentor program, which is quite a big draw.” Fowler said. “We assign them a mentor who trains them on everything they need to know. And they can go through a track all the way through brokership. We try to help them so they can not only be a really good realtor with lots of experience, but have a lot of support. They can also become a broker and expand the Charitable Realty reach.”

The firm now has five brokers who started as new agents.

The team members truly operate as a family in addition to taking part in quarterly fun events and volunteering in the community. And a glance at their reviews shows numerous happy customers.

Charitable Realty recently moved to downtown Aledo — at 241 North Front Street.

“We started at 206 Elm 11 years ago, and when this space opened up we jumped at the opportunity to be here on Front Street,” Fowler said. “We felt it was really important to be downtown and to have a presence here in what we consider to be authentic downtown Aledo since this is our roots, and where we had our start.”

A grand opening is scheduled for June 22, with a ribbon cutting at 4 p.m. that day.

“It will be open to the public — people can stop by and do a little meet and greet,” Fowler said.

For more information about Charitable Realty, call 817-825-8293, visit their office at 241 North Front Street in Aledo, or visit CharitableRealty.org.