Article appeared in Real Estate Alert, August 26, 2020

NAREIM, the trade group for commercial real estate investors, is preparing to survey firms about the gender and racial makeup of their staffs in order to measure and promote diversity in the sector.

The group, working with consulting firm Ferguson Partners, plans to email a questionnaire to investment managers on Sept. 9, with a report due to be released early next year. While NAREIM and Ferguson have included questions about diversity in their annual compensation surveys, this will be the first time the trade group conducts a survey dedicated to “diversity and inclusion” issues.

“We will be actively encouraging all firms managing third-party capital to participate to ensure we build a robust data set everyone can utilize,” said the trade group’s chief executive, Zoe Hughes.

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Beyond measurement, NAREIM and Ferguson hope the survey results spur action. “It was less about benchmarking relative to an absolute metric [and] more about creating a roadmap to increase diversity,” said Austin Morris, a senior director at Ferguson.