John Hope Bryant

Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock Quote of the Day

"Life is about both goodness and mercy. You give mercy to that bad person that 'doesn't get what they do deserve,' because you want grace -- which is when you do get what you don't deserve.'"

Words from Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, Ebenezer Church


John Hope Bryant is a thought leader, founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE, and author of business bestseller LOVE LEADERSHIP: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World (Jossey-Bass).

John Hope Bryant Wishing You A Happy Holiday Season, and a Very Prosperous New Year

HOPE Fellows Program Continues to Carry Torch with Help from New Sponsors | Operation HOPE Blog

HOPE Fellows Program Continues to Carry Torch with Help from New Sponsors

POSTED BY GABRIELLE ARRINGTON ON OCT 9TH, 2012 | 0 COMMENTS

Los Angeles Fellows Meet Operation HOPE Board Member Lionel Savage

Did you know that Operation HOPE relied significantly on the work of ten young college graduates (or near graduates) this summer? Predominately based in Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and Atlanta, these young fellows worked diligently to drive economic empowerment initiatives on a global scale. With the sponsorship of Lionel Savage, an executive from First American and HOPE Board Member, HOPE Fellows made a lasting impact on the organization this summer, proving the power of youth in driving social change.

With the Summer Fellows making such a memorable impact on the organization, Operation HOPE will continue supporting the work of HOPE Fellowships through the generous funding from UPS, Ed Ingle, and George Haligowski. Fellow “champions for silver rights” that will or have received support include:

Read the complete story on the Operation HOPE Blog below.

HOPE Fellows Program Continues to Carry Torch with Help from New Sponsors | Operation HOPE Blog.

Support HOPE Over the Holidays

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Donate Now This has been a monumental year for us at Operation HOPE!  We launched our HOPE Business in a Box entrepreneurship and dignity program earlier this year to help youth ages 9 to 18 build upon financial literacy knowledge gained in Banking on Our Future courses and grow their ideas into businesses.  Our initial pilots in Atlanta and Oakland have gone well, and we look forward to our official launch in January. Operation HOPE also partnered with SEDCO to increase financial dignity in Saudi Arabia and empower college students with personal finance skills. We opened our HOPE Financial Dignity Center at Ebenezer next to the historic grounds of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center and Ebenezer Baptist Church this year which will offer citizens of Atlanta tools for managing their finances and building personal wealth.  The grand opening was one of the featured events during our 2012 HOPE Global Financial Dignity Summit where the 1,000 delegates, 100 speakers and coverage from over 50 media outlets worldwide over the two-day summit truly made it a historic and successful event in November.  Additionally, through our partnership with FEMA, we began implementing economic disaster recovery assistance as an immediate response to Hurricane Sandy and will continue to help those affected throughout 2013.  As we enter the holiday season and approach the end of 2012, we are still working to provide immediate relief for Hurricane Sandy victims and continuing to further “Silver Rights” and financial dignity in underserved communities.  Help us support our ongoing work and efforts through the end of 2012 and for 2013 with a contribution to Operation HOPE.  Whether you can give regular, monthly support for our programs or a one-time contribution, you and our Operation HOPE donors are at the core of our success as we help Hurricane Sandy victims achieve financial stability and prepare for future disasters, educate youth about financial literacy and entrepreneurship for aspiring business owners, and continue making free enterprise and capitalism work for the poor and underserved in 2013.  We hope that you will partner with us to accomplish even more together for next year.  Thank you for your generous support.

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From The AMERICAN BANKER ~The Circuit: Operation HOPE's Global Financial Dignity Summit

At Operation HOPE's Global Financial Dignity Summit, there wasn't much controversy to be found-the premise that everyone, regardless of socioeconomic status, is deserving of dignity in their financial lives doesn't leave much to argue about.

And yet you could be forgiven for leaving the event feeling slightly conflicted: motivated, on the one hand, by the uplifting speeches and the evidence of widespread interest in spreading financial literacy throughout low-income communities and beyond, and unsure on the other hand that any such effort could be both scalable and effective enough to make much of a difference.

But any skepticism would have to wait until the end of the conference to surface, after the final rush to swap business cards with banking executives and the heads of nonprofits, on the last pass through the convention hall as the FDIC and CFPB booths were shutting down, on the airplane trip home from Atlanta. The summit itself was squarely focused on the positive, with an agenda that ranged from a keynote address by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to a Q-and-A session with rapper-turned-businessman Russell Simmons.

A pre-conference program at Atlanta's famed Ebenezer Baptist Church lent an additional sense of purpose and history to the proceedings. Ebenezer is where Martin Luther King Sr. and Jr. preached, and two members of the King family (Martin Luther King Jr.'s only living sibling, Christine King-Farris, and his daughter, Bernice King) appeared over the two days of events, reminding delegates that their fathers saw economic justice, and financial education, as a civil rights matter.

"Dad was all about financial literacy," said King-Farris, who recalled that her father, affectionately known as "Daddy King," encouraged many of his congregants to realize the dream of home ownership.

Operation HOPE describes itself as the "largest national urban delivery system for financial literacy empowerment in the nation." It organized the gathering at Ebenezer to cut the ribbon on its newest Financial Dignity Center, housed within the church's Martin Luther King Sr. Community Resource Complex. In seminars and one-on-one sessions, counselors at Operation HOPE Financial Dignity Centers around the country offer advice on cleaning up bad credit, purchasing a home or obtaining a small-business loan.

The summit (American Banker was a media sponsor) officially kicked off back at the convention hotel, with a timely address by Don Graves, head of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Graves had been with President Obama that day for a heavily publicized meeting with corporate CEOs invited to the White House to discuss the fiscal cliff and its impact on hiring.

The dignity that employment can provide was a key theme that carried into the second day of the summit. Michael Arougheti, the president of Ares Capital, triggered a wave of applause during a panel discussion when he cited a recent observation made by Operation HOPE founder John Hope Bryant: "The new philanthropy is a job."

But it takes more than a job to fully participate in, and benefit from, the financial system. For that, you need to know the vocabulary of money. You need someone to show you, through formal training or just by example, how to responsibly manage your finances. On this, every speaker who addressed the issue agreed wholeheartedly.

"Forty percent of the population wouldn't know what to do if they had a $2,000 emergency," noted SunTrust CEO Bill Rogers, who didn't hesitate to answer in the affirmative when he was asked whether financial literacy should be a required course in high school or college. "I would say actually middle school is the best place to start," Rogers said. "By the time you get to college, you sort of already had to have had it happen."

In U.S., 77% Identify as Christian

In U.S., 77% Identify as Christian.

Guest Op-Ed: Let’s Give Dignity A Chance: Two observations and five takeaways | Operation HOPE Blog

by Lutfey Siddiqi

Atlanta, GA – December 7, 2012

Global Financial what Summit??

This was the most oft-repeated reaction to the event held on the 15th of November 2012 in Atlanta Georgia – the Global Financial Dignity Summit. 

Hosted by two larger-than-life personalities straddling two generations, John Hope Bryant and Ambassador Andrew Young, this conference was headlined by US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and proved to be an innovative and impactful gathering of business, social and political stakeholders focused on economic development.

My wife Deborah and I had travelled the furthest to be there, at the invitation of John who is a fellow member of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leader community.

John Hope Bryant exudes a blend of energy and eloquence that gives him the stage-presence of an Obama with the sensitivity of a Bill Clinton. Together with the understated Professor from Finland Pekka Himanen and the telegenic Crown Prince HRH Haakon of Norway, John founded the Global Dignity movement in 2006. Internationally active and with the hands-on involvement of all three, this movement is based on the premise that every human being has the right to lead a dignified life and as a corollary, the right to access resources to fulfill one’s potential.

Specially designed “dignity sessions” are held in underprivileged schools to affirm self-worth and confidence not only in the way that individuals carry themselves but also in the way that they relate to each other, often in the presence of conflict.

The Global Financial Dignity Summit sought to apply this overarching framework to our current economic challenge – hence the unusual title.

Read the complete article below:

Let’s Give Dignity A Chance: Two observations and five takeaways | Operation HOPE Blog.

Join the Operation HOPE Family for the Holidays at the new HOPE Financial Dignity Center Atlanta, at Ebenezer

via www.johnhopebryant.com

Come out to join us tomorrow night in our new home, at the HOPE Financial Dignity Center Atlanta, at Ebenezer. From civil rights to silver rights, over the holidays.

John Hope Bryant "Silver Rights" Quote of the Day

"When you transform a neighborhood to become a 700-credit score community, liquor stores become covenient stores, and title lenders, payday lenders and rent-to-own stores become credit unions and community banks."

John Hope Bryant, founder, Operation HOPE

 

 

The New and Improved Operation HOPE Mission Statement: Silver Rights Empowerment for All

Operation HOPE gives people the dignity, resources and the opportunity to achieve a level of self-determination in their lives.

Operation HOPE is "the private banker to the working poor, the underclass, and the struggling middle class," and the impact of our work can be felt on-the-ground, everywhere we operate.  Our mission is 'silver rights,' or making free enterprise and capitalism work for all.  Financial literacy is the tool, financial dignity is the goal and financial inclusion is the way.  

Most impressive, are the results. 

• Our Banking on Our Future division, focused on keeping the most at risk youth from repeating the cycles of poverty and dispair that has trapped so many in their families and communities by teaching them basic financial literacy, or what we call "the global language of money."      
• Our HOPE Business In A Box/Gallup HOPE Index division, focused on inspiring a generation of young people to become future American assets of economic energy, small business and entrepreneurship.                                                                                         
• Our HOPE Financial Dignity Centers, where we approve clients day one, subject to the resolution of their primary denial factors, and raise credit scores on average 120 points over 18 months of active counseling. We call it our 700 Credit Scores Initiative.          
• Our HOPE Coalition America division, which is the national partner with FEMA around emergency financial disaster preparedness, response and recovery, or the "economic Red Cross" for the nation.  HCA responded to and served more than 200,000 survivors following Hurricane Katrina, and we are responding to Hurricane Sandy now.        
• Finally, HOPE Government Relations & Public Policy, and HOPE Forums advance responsible public policy and help to shape engaged public opinion.  The recent HOPE Global Financial Dignity Summit featuring US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, with more than 1,500 delegates from 30 countries, covered by 50 major media outlets, is but one example of our focus here. 

With 2 million clients served, 20,000 HOPE Corps volunteers, and more than $1.5 billion in private capital directed into America's low wealth and underserved communities, creating thousands of homeowners, small business owners and entrepreneurs over the past 20 years, Operation HOPE is making a difference.  But we cannot achieve our mission alone.  We cannot seek to advance the final work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., eradicating poverty and achieving a measure of economic justice for all, alone.

Operation HOPE operates the HOPE Financial Dignity Center Atlanta at Ebenezer Church, located on the campus of the King Center and as the anchor tenant of the Martin Luther King, Sr. Community Resource Complex.  Martin Luther King, Sr, or "Daddy King" as he was called, co-pastored Ebenezer Church with his son Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the civil rights movement, and served on the board of a bank for 40-years; a little known fact.  Daddy King was also focused on making free enterprise work for the poor, as his son was focused in the last years of his life on poverty eradication and economic justice.

The mission of Operation HOPE is civil rights to silver rights, or making free enterprise work for all.