Aurora broker's Give Back Realty lets clients pay it forward

Life and grief tore Kelly Farley away from a job he loved and the thrill of the sale.

The Aurora man lost two children to genetic abnormalities before they were born, and to cope, he had to take a break from real estate.

He started a blog for fathers who have lost children, wrote a book, "Grieving Dads: To the Brink and Back," and campaigned - as yet unsuccessfully - for a federal amendment to the Family Medical Leave Act to allow 12 weeks of unpaid time off in the event of the death of a child.

The work gave meaning to his life after the deaths of Katie in 2004 and Noah in 2006, says Farley, 47.

"When I spent three or four years writing the book and helping men through the loss of a child, it dawned on me that I could have a big impact on people's lives," he said.

Yet the excitement of closing the deal kept calling his name. And so did the desire to continue helping others.

"I still missed it. I just wanted to do it with a purpose," he said about the real estate business, which he entered in 1999 and continued while working as an engineer. "Why not create a business that gives back?"

In February, Farley did just that, calling it Give Back Realty. With each sale, Farley donates 25 percent of his commission to the charity or charities of his client's choice.

"I've always been so big into charity, and Kelly is as well. That's what really attracted me to his company," said

Jennifer Marchiando of Aurora, whose house Farley sold Tuesday as his first official Give Back transaction. "He's out there and he cares."

Selling, giving

Farley started putting his new business model out there about a year ago, following a slow-growing trend toward philanthropy among real estate businesses that began around the recession in 2007 and 2008.

Roughly 10 percent of real estate brokers or companies employ some sort of philanthropic element, estimates Daniel Sarrett, president of the Real Estate Education Center in Addison and an adjunct professor of real estate at Harper College in Palatine. Some seek donations on their website for a favorite charity. Others donate a small percentage of their commission to an organization they or their clients select.

"It's good for business. It's good for the community, and it's kind of a national trend," Sarrett said.

But Farley said he's found only a few brokers nationwide who donate as high a percentage as he does and let the client direct where the money goes. His model got an early test drive last year.

Before he officially launched Give Back, he closed a sale for a client who valued the work of CASA Kane County, which provides court-appointed special advocates for childhood victims of abuse and neglect. Instead of keeping the $1,288 that made up a quarter of his commission, he gave it to CASA, which put it toward advocacy, training and volunteer recruitment to help serve 602 abused or neglected children last year.

One success story in the books, he officially created the business and connected with Marchiando. On the sale of her $120,000 house, Give Back's first official donation totaled $1,678.

Marchiando, 53, had an easy time choosing where the largest chunk of the money would go. She picked the organization that helped her build and afford the house where she raised her two sons, now 32 and 29 - Fox Valley Habitat for Humanity. The nonprofit received $678 in the form of a giant check delivered Tuesday by Farley himself.

"Hearing how organizations use the money is the part I enjoy," he said.

Full-circle donation

Marchiando knows how Habitat uses its funds.

In 1992, she was a single mother who moved back to Aurora, where her father was living, when she escaped an abusive relationship in California.

She applied a few years later to Fox Valley Habitat and soon was spending her Saturdays and lunch hours from her job at the Women, Infants and Children program in Aurora helping put together her own 960-square-foot, three-bedroom, one-car-garage

house, piece by piece.

"I was here pretty much every step of the way," Marchiando said. "We know exactly what's behind each of these walls."

She moved in 1998 to what was valued at a $90,000 house and began paying back a 20-year, no-interest loan of roughly $45,000 - the cost of materials needed for the one-story blue-gray home.

With income from later jobs at an Aurora car inspection company, the Little Friends autism organization in Naperville and Heartland Blood Centers in Geneva, Marchiando paid off her loan two years early and was ready to move.

Building the biz

Marchiando heard of Farley because one of his marketing efforts worked. He's met with roughly 30 nonprofits so far, including Fox Valley Habitat, encouraging them to list him as a preferred real estate agent on their websites and promote his promise to give back.

That's exactly what Sarrett encourages his students to do as they prepare to start selling.

"I tell them this is actually a very good way for new people to get exposure to the marketplace," Sarrett said about incorporating a charitable component. "It really gives them some identity."

Such marketing is important because, as do-gooder as it sounds, committing to support charities isn't enough to make a residential real estate business soar all on its own, said Laurie Loew, who founded Give Realty in 2008 in Austin, Texas.

"It's all about engaging the client and the community and letting them give back to something they really care about," said Loew, who now employs seven other agents and has donated $575,000 since launching her business. "You have to be as good or better than other agents out there to be able to give back."

Farley's clients say he is. They describe him as a sweet guy, a people person and a knowledgeable broker who's up on all of his zoning, floodplain and financing terminology - a natural in the mad dash of selling houses.

"He's very relational, and he follows up quickly," said Jeffrey Barrett, executive director of Fox Valley Habitat. "Plus he knows his stuff. He may be the best real estate agent we've ever worked with."

Selling a purpose

Farley takes the praise in stride, as he knows he has much to do to build

Give Back into the business he envisions. He dreams of expanding the business to the entire Chicago and suburban region, hiring other agents to sell and give back, sell and give back. "Make a move. Make a difference," as his catchphrase says.

For now, he's starting in the Western suburbs, where already he's seeing potential for growth. He learned of two new charities from his first client alone, as Marchiando chose to split the remaining $1,000 of her donation between two nonprofits her broker had never heard of: Adopt A River Cat in Aurora and the South Suburban Humane Society in Chicago Heights.

That's part of the enjoyment Farley gains from his new line of work. Not only does he get to close the sale - in Marchiando's case securing her full asking price after the house was on the market for three weeks - but he also gets to encounter the imaginative ways people find to do good.

"Every day, I hear from a different nonprofit," he said.

He predicts he'll hear, too, stories of hunger and domestic violence, of child abuse and homelessness - of any pressing problem a person could face. But that can bring strength.

"You learn the hardships people are helping with," Farley said, wearing a black "Grieving Dads" wristband, the losses of Katie and Noah always in his heart. "And it helps you survive things."