Keller Williams

Quick Take

Keller Williams is a rare case where the company itself has publicly drawn a line: no corporate political action committee, no federal lobbying reported in 2024, and, in its own words, no donations to campaigns.[1][3] The roughly $2.1 million in federal contributions that OpenSecrets ties to the Keller Williams name in the 2024 cycle is individual money, given by agents, owners, and staff, not by the corporation.[3] That individual money has leaned modestly Republican lately, about 59 percent to Republicans in the 2024 cycle, though it sat closer to the center in earlier cycles.[5] The culture around that money is unmistakably faith inflected, built on a God, family, then business hierarchy, yet in 2020 the company also stood up a social equity task force and committed publicly to diversity, equity, and inclusion, so the values picture pulls in more than one direction.[2][4]

The Company Says It Stays Out

The clearest political signal Keller Williams sends is a refusal to send one. In a March 2025 statement attributed to Executive Chairman and co-founder Gary Keller, the company said plainly that it "does not donate to political campaigns" and did not contribute to any candidate or party in the most recent presidential election.[1] The same statement framed Keller Williams as an agent centric company that values every associate "regardless of their political perspectives" and encourages respectful dialogue across a politically diverse network.[1] The statement went further in an update, addressing a rumor on social media that Keller Williams or its subsidiaries had donated to Project 2025; the company said it had never donated funds to or declared support for that effort.[1] Treated as evidence of what the company said rather than proof of intent, it is consistent with the campaign finance record: no corporate PAC appears on the company's OpenSecrets profile.[3]

Where the Political Money Comes From

OpenSecrets tracks about $2.1 million in federal contributions tied to the Keller Williams name in the 2024 cycle, classified entirely as individual giving, with $0 from any corporate PAC, $0 in federal lobbying, and $0 in outside spending.[3] The people giving are agents, franchise owners, and staff who list a Keller Williams affiliated brokerage as their employer, spread across roughly a thousand independently operated offices, so the total reflects a large and decentralized sales force rather than a position set at headquarters. That individual giving splits close to the middle and has tilted modestly Republican in recent cycles: Republican candidates and committees took about 59 percent of it in the 2024 cycle and about 52 percent in 2020, while in 2018 the same money leaned slightly Democratic, so the direction has moved around the center rather than settling in one place.[5] Those yearly shares are also noisy, since a small number of large individual donors can swing any single cycle.[5]

God, Family, Then Business

Keller Williams wears its culture openly. The company's stated core values place God first, family second, and business third, a hierarchy it has kept since the early years and still features in recruiting and franchise materials.[2] That culture shows up in signature programs like RED Day, an annual company wide day of community service held each May, and KW Cares, a nonprofit that supports associates facing hardship.[6] At the same time, the company's public posture on identity has not been one note. In June 2020, after the death of George Floyd, Gary Keller created a social equity task force, drawn from leaders across every region, and charged it with recommending ways to eliminate racial disparity inside the company and the industry.[16] The effort produced concrete changes rather than a single statement. In September 2020, Keller Williams' international leadership council voted unanimously to amend the company's belief system, WI4C2TES, which had gone essentially unchanged for decades, adding a new core belief, "Equity: Opportunities for all," and standing up a permanent Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee.[16] Keller Williams then named Julia Lashay Israel as its head of inclusion and belonging to train and coach leaders and agents on those issues.[17] The task force's action plan aimed to increase diversity at every level of the company, expand homeownership in communities of color, and diversify its marketing, backed by agent education including courses called Unconscious Bias and Color of Real Estate that cover bias in housing and the history of the homeownership gap.[18] The company also built a diversity certification for agents called Agent of Distinction,[19] and it drew outside recognition, appearing on Forbes' America's Best Employers for Diversity list and joining the LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance as a founding partner.[17] Both the faith framing and this diversity record are the company's own documented language.

The Founder

Gary Keller co-founded Keller Williams in Austin in 1983 with Joe Williams, growing a single Texas office into the largest United States real estate franchise by agent count.[7] Keller was born in Pasadena, Texas, in 1957, studied at Baylor University, and became a best selling author whose real estate and productivity titles, including The Millionaire Real Estate Agent and The ONE Thing, are fixtures of agent training.[8] He stepped back from and returned to active leadership more than once and today serves as Executive Chairman while remaining a significant shareholder.[9] Keller's own political giving is modest and shows no strong partisan pattern: the federal and Texas records filed under his name as Keller Williams' chairman are mostly small contributions to the Texas Association of Realtors political action committee, alongside his one larger recent gift, $3,000 in January 2018 to Jose Menendez, a Democratic Texas state senator.[13] The company's longtime culture keeper, former president and vice chairman Mo Anderson, is widely credited inside the company with sustaining its values based identity.[6]

New Money, New Boss

Recent years brought Keller Williams both a legal reckoning and a change in ownership. The company settled the commission antitrust cases in two steps: in February 2024 it agreed to pay $70 million to resolve the home seller claims in the Sitzer/Burnett litigation, a deal that also changed how it handles commissions, and in February 2026 it became the first defendant to settle the separate homebuyer case known as Batton, agreeing to pay $20 million to release its agents and franchisees from those claims.[10][14] Separately, in 2025, after 42 years as a fully private and independently owned company, Keller Williams sold an investment stake to private equity firm Stone Point Capital, a co-owner of property data giant CoreLogic alongside Insight Partners,[15] and named Christopher Czarnecki, formerly chief executive of Broadstone Net Lease, as its new chief executive and president, with Gary Keller staying on as executive chairman and a significant shareholder.[9][11]

Where to Find Them

Keller Williams operates at kw.com as a privately held global franchisor headquartered in Austin, Texas, with roughly 1,000 offices and about 165,000 agents worldwide, roughly 145,000 of them in the United States as of 2025, the largest real estate franchise in the United States by agent count.[7][12]

Footnotes

[1] Keller Williams Realty, "Statement: Keller Williams' Apolitical Stance," attributed to Gary Keller, March 2025. https://kwri.kw.com/press/statement-keller-williams-apolitical-stance

[2] The Real Deal, "Keller's second coming," May 6, 2019. https://therealdeal.com/magazine/new-york-may-2019/kellers-second-coming/

[3] OpenSecrets, "Keller Williams Realty Profile: Summary," accessed August 2, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/keller-williams-realty/summary?id=D000035038

[4] Keller Williams Realty Atlanta Partners, "Our Culture" (2020 social equity task force and diversity commitment), accessed August 2, 2026. https://kwptc.com/our-culture

[5] OpenSecrets, "Keller Williams Realty Profile: Totals," all cycles, accessed August 3, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/keller-williams-realty/totals?id=D000035038

[6] Keller Williams, "Culture" (RED Day, KW Cares, Mo Anderson), accessed August 2, 2026. https://thrive.kw.com/culture

[7] Wikipedia, "Keller Williams Realty," accessed August 2, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keller_Williams_Realty

[8] Wikipedia, "Gary W. Keller," accessed August 2, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_W._Keller

[9] BAM, "Keller Williams Sells Investment Stake to Stone Point Capital," 2025. https://nowbam.com/keller-williams-sells-investment-stake-to-stone-point-capital/

[10] Real Estate News, "Keller Williams reaches $70M settlement in commissions case," February 1, 2024. https://www.realestatenews.com/2024/02/01/keller-williams-reaches-usd70m-settlement-in-commissions-case

[11] RISMedia, "Keller Williams Brings on Private Equity Firm After 42 Years of Private Ownership," March 3, 2025. https://www.rismedia.com/2025/03/03/keller-williams-stone-point/

[12] Keller Williams Realty, "Keller Williams Named Again as No. 1 Real Estate Franchise in the U.S." (T3 Sixty Real Estate Almanac agent count ranking), April 3, 2025. https://kwri.kw.com/press/keller-williams-named-again-as-no-1-real-estate-franchise-in-the-u-s

[13] OpenSecrets, Donor Lookup: Gary Keller, accessed August 3, 2026. This is a Texas state contribution, not a federal one: the $3,000 gift is recorded under employer Keller Williams Realty, Inc., occupation Chairman, to Jose Antonio Menendez (D), Texas Senate, dated January 10, 2018, as reported to the Texas Ethics Commission and indexed in OpenSecrets state data, and is distinct from the many unrelated donors named Gary Keller in federal records. Also verifiable through TransparencyUSA's Texas database. https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=keller+gary

[14] Real Estate News, "Keller Williams is first to settle in Batton, will pay $20M," February 2, 2026. https://www.realestatenews.com/2026/02/02/keller-williams-is-first-to-settle-in-batton-will-pay-usd20m

[15] Stone Point Capital, "Stone Point Capital and Insight Partners Complete Acquisition of CoreLogic," June 4, 2021. https://www.stonepoint.com/news/stone-point-capital-and-insight-partners-complete-acquisition-of-corelogic/

[16] HousingWire, "Keller Williams adds Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee to leadership council," September 19, 2020. https://www.housingwire.com/articles/keller-williams-adds-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-committee-to-leadership-council/

[17] kwx, "kwx Taps DEI Expert Julia Lashay Israel" (Forbes America's Best Employers for Diversity ranking and LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance founding partnership), May 25, 2021. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210525005729/en/kwx-Taps-DEI-Expert-Julia-Lashay-Israel

[18] StarTribune, "Twin Cities real estate agent leads diversity approach across U.S. for Keller Williams," November 2, 2021. https://www.startribune.com/twin-cities-real-estate-agent-leads-diversity-approach-across-u-s-for-keller-williams/600112394

[19] Keller Williams via BusinessWire, "Keller Williams Announces Diversity Certification" (Agent of Distinction), 2022. https://www.streetinsider.com/Business+Wire/Keller+Williams+Announces+Diversity+Certification/19979111.html