When Hurricane Ian made landfall with 150 mph winds late last month along Southwest Florida's coast, Colliers' Fort Myers employees were among those disrupted by the Category 4 storm. Shortly afterward, the brokerage and some of its Florida employees took action to help.
Scott Sadove, a Colliers regional operations manager based in Orlando, Florida, established the "Colliers Cares: Hurricane Ian Relief" effort on fundraising platform GoFundMe. "We will be working on organizing several things to help support our professionals and their families in Fort Myers," Sadove said in his post. "All funds collected will be used directly to purchase supplies for our professionals and those in need."
Colliers US kicked off the effort with a $6,250 donation that it increased to $10,000. The fundraiser attracted more donations than anticipated as Colliers employees and others quickly sent money. "Our original goal was $25k, but the support exploded so we pushed to $100k and have achieved that," Danny Rice, Colliers' market leader in Central Florida, said in an email. "It’s amazing!"
Ryan Vaught, a Colliers capital markets broker and executive managing director in Tampa, posted several videos and pictures on LinkedIn of colleagues marshaling and heading to Fort Myers with supplies. "We raised over $20,000 TODAY!" Vaught said in a post last week. "Over 93% of money that had been raised as of 12p today had already been spent. We can do more with more."
As of Monday afternoon, the campaign that included Colliers employees from its west and central Florida region preparing supplies for their colleagues had raised more than $113,000. Sadove said "any funds left over will be donated to a local charity directly involved in helping those in need."
Other companies, including CoStar Group, publisher of CoStar News, are helping those disrupted by the massive storm. The company said it would contribute $50,000 to the American Red Cross to support Hurricane Ian emergency response and relief efforts. It also pledged to match contributions made by CoStar employees up to a total of $50,000.