[Note: To follow is an excerpt of an interview with finalists of the National Association of REALTORS' Good Neighbor Award, who helped Income Property Investment Talk celebrate its 100th week on the air. To listen to the show archive or download an MP3, go to www.IncomePropertyInvestmentTalk.com/090909.]

Mosca: Today's show marks Income Property Investment Talk's 100th week on the air at the VoiceAmerica Network. When we started 100 weeks ago we had about 200 listeners. Today, we are up to around 25,000 plus we have over 600 on our fan page on Facebook and more importantly more than 500 of you, our listeners, have contacted our sponsor at RealSource for free real estate investment advice and one-on-one consultations. Many of you have also visited our Web site at incomepropertyinvestmenttalk.com and clicked on the "Best of Times" graphic that leads to a virtual deal room where you have put in offers and purchased assets at deeply discounted rates. As we all know Dean you earn your profit, you generate your wealth, when you buy and you buy right.

Essa [co-host]: There's no doubt about that. One of the greatest things about this show has been bringing what the institutions have been doing for years by way of getting discounts on property and discounts on materials and being able to connect and bring that type of mentality and investing down to the real estate investing entrepreneur.

Mosca: As a huge baseball fan, let me say that incomepropertyinvestmenttalk.com has been through spring training, Single A, Double A, Triple A, and now we are moving into the big leagues. In order to stay in the big leagues we need your help. We need your comments, we need your suggestions, and we need your support. If you like what your listening to tell others about us, your family, friends, peers, and of course your online communities. If you're on Facebook, join us and post what you are doing. If you tweet, shoot us out a tweet. I'm going to start tweeting myself at @PeterLMosca. Tell others about the show. In order for online communities to work and be successful, you need to have the credibility, authenticity and for 100 weeks we have had the very best and brightest on our program.

Essa: Our guests are absolutely at the top of their game. In fact, most of our guests could charge cost hundreds of dollars to get them to appear, to speak to groups, and we have been so fortunate to have them estate on our show.

Mosca: REALTORS, who appear and call into our show, do more than buy and sell homes: They are active members of the community in which they live and work. Our guests today are finalists in the National Association of REALTORS' Good Neighbor Awards. In its 10th year, NAR's GNA recognize REALTORS® who generously volunteer their time to help others. Over the 10 year period they've had almost 100 Good Neighbor recipients who help inspire others to get involved in their communities. Today's guests are: Cindy Johnson, Dona Christensen Realty in Woodbury, Minnesota; Margaret Pruitt Clark, Ken Meade Realty, Surprise, Arizona, and Jeffrey Davidson Schrager, Davidson Schrager Realty Blue Inc., Fresno, California.

Mosca: Our first guest is Cindy Johnson. Her charity is the ARC of Minnesota. For more than 20 years, she has been a volunteer advocate and lobbyist at the local, state, and national level for The Arc, an organization that helps people with intellectual and other disabilities get the individual services they need to live a full life. Motivated by her own experience as the mother and sister of people with disabilities, her passion is to enable people to live, learn, work, and play in their own communities rather than be doomed to life in an institution. Cindy successfully lobbied to prevent $50 million in cuts, good for you, to services for 57,000 disabled Minnesotans. Her role as a national public policy chair impacts 15 million people nationwide.

Johnson: I am thrilled to be a Good Neighbor and to be a finalist. I think there were over 300 applications or people that were nominated. My broker, Dona Christensen, who herself has MS, actually started the work with the Arc. She really values the work that I do not just because she has a disability herself but because it is important to our community. I am connected to many people and I am really a disability guru in real estate when it comes to somebody actually wanting to find a home in the community. The ARC of Minnesota is the largest and oldest disability organization in Minnesota. It's part of a nationwide network of chapters and then we have a national organization. The ARC of Minnesota is the voice for many persons with disabilities both in the community and at the legislature. They provide information and support to families, advocacy to receive and maintain services, and they are a crucial link to people with disabilities having a quality of life and being able to stay in the community.

Mosca: Your lobbying efforts help 57,000 disabled Minnesotans?

Johnson: There is no more important work that you can do then the volunteer work that makes life better for people. I don't make any money doing the lobbying. That's not important to me. It's that kids with disabilities can stay at home with their families and go to regular schools and grow up to have jobs and live in the community. That's what it's all about. As we talked about earlier, one in 10 people have a significant disability. I can attest to that. I had nine brothers and sisters, there were 10 of us and we had one child with a significant disability. My parents have 19 grandchildren and there are two, my daughter and one other that have significant disabilities. Now that I've thrown that out there, people start thinking about it. We are only one accident away or a child being born from having or joining this road on disabilities. It's a place in life where we really have to support each other. We find ourselves always struggling to keep the supports and services that the people need. In my role as a REALTOR I have been instrumental helping people find the right home and to find the right community and all of the accessibility options that go with it.

Mosca: What is your golden nugget for today?

Johnson: The work that we do is important but I think most important is how we change life for people and how we make our communities better.

Mosca: The second NAR Good Neighbor Award finalist joining us on Income Property Investment Talk is Margaret "Marge" Pruitt Clark with Ken Meade Realty in Surprise, Arizona. Margaret is founder of Eve's Place, a safe house that provides hope and security to victims of domestic violence and their children. Since 2005, Eve's Place has grown from a small office staffed by volunteers to a 40-bed shelter that offers a 24-hour crisis hotline, professional counseling, support groups and transitional housing. Until 2007, Marge served as volunteer president and executive director and was in charge of hiring and training all staff and volunteers and leading fundraising efforts that enabled the organization to grow.

Clark: One of the first things that struck me is last quarter we provided 3,800 bed nights of shelter. That is how fast that we are growing. We are in the northwest valley of Phoenix and Surprise is one of the most rapidly growing areas. I realized in 2003 the need for social services are growing too. At that point a group of us began to plan seriously for a domestic violence shelter. It's been mainly a volunteer effort. We finally got state funds two years ago but it's really been an overwhelmingly exciting community effort to get this thing off the ground.

Mosca: If someone is a victim of domestic violence and feel they don't have an avenue to pursue to get out, they do, don't they?

Clark: It's part of the syndrome that the abuser very systematically denigrates the abused so that they feel like they have no options. Some withhold all money from them, and if they have job skills they keep them out of the job market. It's a very debilitating syndrome even if there is no physical violence. It's really hard for a woman to leave. It's hard for her to believe that she can make it on her own. The message is there is places like Eve's Place that will help a woman get on her feet. The community needs to stand up and say domestic violence is not acceptable and if I see it or hear it or know of it that I will call the abuser on it and that's really hard to do. Victims must know there are resources available and we also want the community to know we are available or know we are here because obviously we are heavily dependent upon community funds to do our work.

Mosca: Marge, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE or 1-800-799-7233 and it says here in big bold letters anonymous and confidential. Can you talk to us a little bit about the process of securing state funds?

Clark: I wrote a grant 2 1/2 years ago for a private foundation, which enabled us to hire an executive director. She is the one that had experience writing state grants and was able to get the grant. I can't claim direct credit for the state grant. My REALTOR experience helped me with being comfortable outreaching into the community and not being afraid to go talk to anybody about what I needed and wanted. Steve Meade, the president of Ken Meade, was my first corporate donor. That's the way that my real estate connections have been really important to me. Community education and community awareness has always been very important for us.

Mosca: What is your golden nugget for today?

Clark: There is somebody out there who needs your help – reach out and help them.

Mosca: Our third finalist of the NAR Good Neighbor Awards is Jeffrey Davidson Schrager. He is with Realty Blue Inc. in Fresno, California. Jeff is founder and developer of No Homeowner Left Behind, a model foreclosure prevention initiative that has trained more than 300 housing industry professionals to provide volunteer counseling to homeowners who are having problems paying their mortgage.

Schrager: We've had the problem come to us and I'm glad to say that our community has really stepped up. We could see the problem coming about 2 1/2, three years ago and we've done a great job with getting people in the homes. Now the discussion has turned to keeping those people in their homes. About three years ago we collected all our community resources and discussed what other communities had done to deal with foreclosure prevention and we networked those resources together based on our local communities' need and made a comprehensive response scenario. We do outreach to homeowners. We get in touch with them and find out what their particular problem is and then we help to refer them through the community network resources that are already in place here in our community so that they can best avoid the foreclosure or if it's not possible to avoid a foreclosure, we try to minimize the impact on that family and thereby minimize the impact on our community by doing it.

Mosca: Does your initiative have a name?

Schrager: Our local initiative is the "No Homeowner Left Behind." Now we are exporting it, so we created a foundation, the "No Homeowner Left Behind Foundation" and the purpose of the foundation is to help other areas do what we did. Rather than do it for them, we are trying to teach them how to fish so to speak and then help them along the way so that they can minimize the impact for their community. The bottom line is affordability. Affordability can be had through either a modification of your current loan or a refinance of your existing loan or loans. It used to be 50 percent of people that lost their homes would even contact their lender and so one of the big things is get in touch with your lender. Talk to them about what options they are going to offer you. It could be a modification. It could be a refinance. The reality is there is free help out there for people that are facing foreclosure.

Mosca: Jeff, do you also have a crisis hotline and a Web site?

Schrager: That's right. The national foreclosure hotline is 1.888-995-HOPE. The caller will get in touch with a HUD approved counselor and they can help the homeowner navigate options. Our local hotline is 211and Web site is www.nohomeownerleftbehind.org. Getting through to a solution that will help you save your home can take a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of persistence. You've got to be persistent and you've got to basically be proactive. You want to watch out for scammers and predators at the same time but you want to be proactive. Pick up the phone and get in touch with a professional that can help you navigate the maze.

Mosca: What is your golden nugget for today?

Schrager: Everybody on your show today has been called to do good work and really volunteerism is the key. Everyone listening to this program has the ability to make a difference be it small or be at large. Take the initiative, make a difference, and it may inspire others as well.

Published: October 8, 2009

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Peter L. Mosca is president and founder of BAK Communications, Inc. He has over 22 years of communications and media consulting experience, serving a variety of nonprofit organizations, including the CCIM Institute and the REALTOR Association on all three levels – national, state and local. He is the Spokesperson Trainer for the CCIM's Jay Levine Academy and trains hundreds of residential REALTORS nationwide to be effective industry spokespeople. He is consistently ranked as "excellent" by about 90% of those who attend his presentations. While his principal consulting focuses are public speaking and media relations development and content delivery and management, Peter is also the host of the Voice America Network's weekly radio program, "Income Property Investment Talk," a one-hour program that brings the powerhouses of commercial and residential real estate to property investors every Wednesday at 11 a.m. EST. Peter is married 17 years to his wife Barbara. They have two children: Ashley, 15 and Kelli, 12. Hence, the name BAK Communications, Inc.