Create Platforms, Not Thrones – Fearless Generosity

In commercial real estate, there’s always someone polishing their metaphorical throne—monuments to ego, personal legacy, or an insatiable thirst for LinkedIn likes. But the most fearless leaders? They build something better: platforms. Generosity isn’t weakness—it’s a force multiplier. True impact doesn’t come from perching above the crowd but from constructing the scaffolding that lifts others up.

This week, we look at four icons who embody Fearless Generosity—not by commanding attention from above, but by engineering platforms that empower communities, unlock opportunity, and shift power outward.

Catherine Buell: The Platform of Capital

Fearless generosity sometimes means tearing up the usual rulebook for how capital flows. When Catherine Buell led the Amazon Housing Equity Fund, she wasn’t there to

rubber-stamp deals—she built a $2 billion mechanism designed to empower people who'd historically been shut out.

Through initiatives like the "Emerging Developer" cohort, Buell carved out space for diverse developers who’d been locked outside the gates of institutional capital. By positioning the fund as a subordinate lender (yes, generous and financially shrewd), she enabled firms like Jair Lynch and Dantes Partners to build real, lasting affordable housing. Now, through her venture Wellness Real Estate Innovations, she's focused on an overlooked demographic: aging middle-market Americans. Instead of gated exclusivity, she’s designing spaces for connection and community. Her career makes one thing painfully clear: real power is the ability—and the will—to give it away.

Chris Smith: The Platform of Community

Plenty of developers know how to throw up a building. Chris Smith knows how to build a home for an entire community's soul.

With THEARC (Town Hall Education Arts Recreation Campus), Smith didn’t follow the rent-maximizing blueprint. He created a nonprofit campus that anchors Southeast DC with roughly 15 social-impact tenants—think arts, education, health, and recreation. This required navigating complex politics and pushing through in a neighborhood many developers wouldn’t touch. But that’s the thing about fearless generosity: it shows up when no one else does. THEARC isn’t just a building. It’s a stage where the community gets to perform, thrive, and serve. And maybe that’s the legacy more developers should aim for: being the scaffolding, not the spotlight.

Buwa Binitie: The Platform of Succession

Some developers talk about legacy like it’s a brand extension. Buwa Binitie actually builds one.

As Managing Principal of Dantes Partners, Binitie has made a habit of turning capital into community. But more than that, he’s opened doors for others to do the same. At the DC Housing Finance Agency, he helped architect an equity program aimed at affordable housing developers, lowering the financial drawbridge for the next generation. His guiding principle is blunt and brilliant: “There is no succession without successors.” Through mentorship and creative financial structuring, he’s making sure the platform outlives the platform-builder. That’s fearless generosity: knowing when to step up—and when to get out of the way.

Len Forkas: The Platform of Connection

Some people climb mountains for bragging rights. Len Forkas climbs them to bring kids out of isolation.

After his son’s battle with leukemia, Forkas founded Hopecam, a nonprofit using tech to connect kids with cancer to their classrooms and friends. But he didn’t stop at organizing a few video calls. He turned extreme endurance challenges—like Race Across America and Mount Everest—into fundraising megaphones. He carried photos of kids fighting cancer with him to the summit, making sure their stories—not his—got the spotlight. And instead of relying on the guilt economy of philanthropy, he reframed donors as investors in mental health outcomes. Now that’s a platform:

bold, weird, effective.

The Takeaway

Thrones are easy to build. They make you feel tall—until you realize you’re sitting alone. Platforms? They’re harder. Riskier. But they elevate others. They generate legacy.

Whether it’s Buell’s capital structures, Smith’s community campuses, Binitie’s succession strategy, or Forkas’s tech-fueled mission—it all points in the same direction: power isn’t meant to be hoarded. It’s meant to be shared.

So ask yourself (and try to be honest): Are you building a hierarchy to sit atop, or a platform that others can stand on?

Fearless generosity is not soft. It’s steel and concrete. And it builds the future.