Winner Realty has been named a recipient of the Brokerage Spirit Honors from the Greater Louisville Association of REALTORS® (GLAR) — the association’s recognition for brokerages that build community giving into how they do business, not just how they talk about it.

What the Brokerage Spirit Honors Actually Recognizes

GLAR represents more than 5,500 real estate professionals across the Louisville metro. Its Awards and Recognitions of Excellence Committee hands out several honors each year — REALTOR® of the Year, the Wall of Honor, the John R. Carpenter Community Service Award among them — but the Brokerage Spirit Honors is the only one aimed squarely at a firm’s culture rather than one person’s résumé.

Per GLAR’s own description, the honor “recognizes brokerages that go beyond business success, dedicating time, resources, and leadership to support causes that uplift the community.” Brokerages can self-nominate or be nominated, and — this is the part that matters — the criteria is explicitly not based on funds raised. GLAR judges instead on:

• The extent of a brokerage’s contribution to the community — how many people or areas it reaches, and how significant the improvement is.
• Whether the giving is a one-time gesture or a lasting initiative — long-term charitable partnerships, education, housing support.
• Whether the brokerage’s efforts serve underrepresented or marginalized residents, on issues like affordable housing, homelessness, or inequality.
• Whether giving back is a culture built into the office “at all levels,” not just leadership writing a check.

A brokerage can’t win the honors two years in a row, either — GLAR wants it to spread across firms that are actually doing the work, not the same name every year.

Why It Fit Winner Realty

Winner Realty donates 1% of its net profits to Hand in Hand on every closing, as a standing part of how the brokerage is built — not a year-end gesture or a marketing campaign. It’s the same structure whether the market is up or down.

Owner-Realtor Rob Bergeron was introduced to Hand in Hand by his longtime mentor, Harry Borders of Borders & Borders, who took him on his first trip with the organization. That relationship is what shaped the giving into something built into the brokerage from day one, rather than added on later.

That’s the piece GLAR’s criteria is actually built to find: not the size of a check, but whether an entire office has agreed, as a matter of course, that a share of every deal goes somewhere beyond the deal itself.

An Award-Winning Brokerage, By GLAR’s Own Definition

Winner Realty is a Louisville, Kentucky real estate brokerage licensed in Kentucky and Indiana. This recognition from the Greater Louisville Association of REALTORS® is for how the firm gives back — not just how it closes deals — and it’s part of the same culture behind Winner Realty’s standing 1% pledge to Hand in Hand.