Awards

Community Champion

The MBA Opens Doors Foundation is pleased to present the 2024 MBA Opens Doors Community Champion Award to ICE Mortgage Technology.

 Our awardee has demonstrated outstanding leadership and commitment to the Foundation. 

The Community Champion award, created in 2013, recognizes an individual, group or company that has dedicated significant time and effort to advance the Foundation’s mission. 

In 2018, ICE Mortgage Technology (ICE), then Ellie Mae, selected the Opens Doors Foundation as the beneficiary of its Ellie Mae Community Pro-Am, kicking off an enduring relationship with the Foundation.  Since then, ICE has donated nearly $300,000 to support our mission of keeping families with sick or injured children in their homes while their child is in treatment.

Dedicated to service that goes to the heart of neighborhoods and communities, ICE established ICE Gives Back as a way of supporting its employees and the causes near and dear to their hearts.

In September 2023, as the Foundation launched its most important fundraiser of the year, the Chairman’s Annual Appeal, ICE was engaged in its $11.9B acquisition of Black Knight. Yet, despite what was undeniably a busy week, ICE found the time to commit $75,000 to the campaign and did so by iterating the importance of the Opens Doors mission and ICE’s support of it.

For their support of Opens Doors and their commitment to families with sick or injured children in need of housing assistance, we are pleased to present the 2024 Community Champion Award to ICE Mortgage Technology.

Founder's Award

The MBA Opens Doors Foundation is pleased to present the 2024 MBA Opens Doors Foundation Founder’s Award to Jay Bray, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mr. Cooper Group. 

The award recognizes significant contributions to the Foundation’s mission of helping vulnerable families with critically ill or injured children remain in their homes while a child is in treatment. The award recognizes individuals whose demonstrated action has occurred over a sustained period of time and whose personal commitment to the Foundation exemplifies the core values, spirit and essence on which Opens Doors was founded.

 As the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jay Bray has spearheaded the company’s support of more than $250,000 and expanded the Foundation’s awareness and reach among the many teams at Mr. Cooper and throughout real estate finance industry. Personally, Jay and his wife Holly, have donated more than $20,000 in support of the Foundation’s mission. 

In the spring of 2024, Jay and the Mr. Cooper team created “Coloring with Mr. Cooper,” books that along with crayons were sent to children at each of the 13 network children’s hospitals.  The coloring book contained not just pictures for coloring but inspirational messages from team members at Mr. Cooper, as well as a warm and inspirational letter from Jay to sick and injured children letting them know that the entire Mr. Cooper family is cheering them on. 

Jay’s leadership at Mr. Cooper extends beyond Opens Doors, to organizations that promote financial literacy, affordable housing and safe communities across the country.

 For his leadership, generosity, and deep sense of community, we honor Jay Bray.

The David H. Stevens Spirit Award

In the wake of the unexpected passing of former MBA President and CEO and Founder, along with Mary Clarke Stevens and Dan Arrigoni, of the MBA Opens Doors Foundation, we believed it was fitting to rename the MBA Opens Doors Foundation Spirit Award to The David H. Stevens Spirit Award. The renaming recognizes Dave’s vision for a world where families caring for a sick or injured child should not have to worry about losing their home because of mounting medical expenses. It recognizes his intention to create a foundation to help vulnerable families and the spirit in which he saw it through. 

The MBA Opens Doors Foundation is pleased to present the David H. Stevens Spirit Award to Debra W. Still, Vice Chairman of Pulte Financial Services and Chair of the Board of Directors of the MBA Opens Doors Foundation. 

The David H. Stevens Spirit Award recognizes an individual or group of individuals, from one or more organizations, whose enthusiasm and support for Opens Doors brought new people and organizations to the Opens Doors roster of supporters and whose efforts amplified the impact the Foundation has on vulnerable families in America. 

Throughout her career, Deb has led with passion, commitment and a belief that the values we hold as real estate professionals means we care about families in our communities, especially families caring for sick or injured children who may also be facing the loss of their precious home. 

As Chair of the Opens Doors Board of Directors, she’s led the expansion of the board from three people in 2012 to 21 members today. She’s overseen the expansion of our hospital network from a single relationship with Children’s National Hospital, to a network of 13 children’s hospitals in eight states and the District of Columbia. And she has spearheaded fundraising efforts that started with a $50,000 grant from the Mortgage Bankers Association to more than $30M raised from real estate  industry colleagues. 

At Pulte Financial where Deb serves as Vice Chairman, she’s led a record number of internal campaigns, bringing new team members to our mission.  Nearly 160 people from Pulte have contributed to Opens Doors through various campaigns and events. Between 2013 and today, Deb has secured more than $830,000 in corporate donations from Pulte and together with her husband, Roger, has personally donated $125,000 to Opens Doors. 

For her spirit and ongoing support, we honor Debra W. Still as the first recipient of the 2024 David H. Stevens Spirit Award.