John Hope Bryant

Solving Poverty: This Generation Needs An Economic Backup Plan

I recently met a very impressive young man while visiting with my father, Mr. Johnnie Will Smith, in Los Angeles, California.  This young man, who lived next door and is the son of one who helps to care for my proud and still self-powered father of 88 years young, possessed incredible vocal, musical, and even writing and producing talent.   In other words, he could not only sing and dance, he could 'think,' analyze and strategize too. The only problem with this young man's life success plan, as I shared with him, was that his primary dream plan did not have a practical backup plan.  And worse from my perspective, his backup plan, should really be his primary plan instead.  Let me explain.

Responsible rap (meaning rap that is true to its origins and roots), Hip-Hop, the broad world of celebrity, and our varied professional sports, are so very important to cultivate and carry forward as part of the larger African-American and minority success story framework for a race.  As Quincy Jones repeatedly burns into my soul and pounds into my thick head, "music, art and culture shapes the soul, helps to heal and bring together our world. They help to shape more well rounded people."  I agree with Q 100%.  

That said, having a career in music, the arts, entertainment (in front of the camera) and sports as the primary life success solution for more than 30 million African-Americans alone in this country, is just plain dumb.  Sure, a few lucky ones will make it through, but I would argue that most of them are not in fact all that 'lucky,' at the end of their career-day. A couple facts.

70% of all professional football players file bankruptcy within 5-years of retirement from the game, and there is a 100% injury rate amongst professional football players.

70% plus of all professional basketball players file bankruptcy within 5-years of retirement from the game.

And a vast majority of the "celebrity" artists, from rap to Hip-Hop and beyond, find themselves dead broke after a short, and often even highly visible career.  

FROM OMAHA WORLD-HERALD: ‘Make smart sexy again,’ youths told

By Ross Boettcher
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

The long-term future of the U.S. economy rests on the shoulders of young people who are eager to start businesses, create jobs and be their own bosses but don’t necessarily have the skills to pull that off.

The most recent Gallup-Hope Index, a measure of entrepreneurial engagement and financial literacy, found that 45 percent of students in grades five through 12 want to start their own company, and 77 percent want to be their own boss.

The students responded to a nationally representative poll conducted by the Gallup Organization in partnership with Operation HOPE. 

On Wednesday, about 300 high-achieving Omaha Avenue Scholars, community business leaders and 300 Gallup employees converged on the Joslyn Museum to hear John Hope Bryant, the chief executive and founder of Operation HOPE, encourage more students to fight back against “thug culture” and to “make smart sexy again.”

“Everything you do matters,” Bryant said. “This is not a recession we’re in. It’s a reset.”

The vast majority of the 1,721 students surveyed said they aren’t afraid to take risks, never give up and are regularly thinking of new ideas — qualities characteristic of entrepreneurs.

But only about half report that their schools offer classes on how to run a business and 54 percent learn lessons about finance and banking. Fifty-eight percent of students reported having their own bank account, and about one-in-five spend more than one hour a week doing a paid job.

Read the complete article here.

 

20 Years Old Today: Operation HOPE 's Founder Reports on Progress

20 years ago today, on May 5th, 1992, the organization that would change my life and give my life both purpose and incredible meaning -- Operation HOPE -- was born.  

Born after the worst riot and civil unrest in our nation's history, I remember my own personal frustration in the hours and days following the rioting in South Central Los Angeles. I also remember precisely right where I was, at the exact time when our community seemed to come unglued.  I was standing in my westside offices for Bryant Group Companies, then located at Santa Monica and Sepulveda Boulevard in the Westwood Gateway complex buildings.  I was standing there, looking at my community burn.  

I will tell my own personal story in a separate post, but needless to say, what I saw, made me want to act.  And act we did.  Soon, Operation HOPE had assembled its first loyal employees, led by my chief of staff Rachael Doff who is still with me today, soon followed by Lance Triggs, now executive vice president, and not long thereafter came Mary Hagerty, now Mrs. Mary Hagerty Ehrsam, who is first senior vice president and global chief of financial literacy. Then came our own Jena Roscoe, who literally walked out the door from her last job at the White House working in the second term of President Bill Clinton, to run our then new Operation HOPE Office of Government Relations and Public Policy.  And then there was my best friend Rod McGrew, who was the first HOPE Corps volunteer for the organization.  And then there was Fred Smith, our first president, and so many others. Slowly, all the executive and senior leadership team pieces began to come together.

HOPE has four principle divisions, HOPE Coalition America, HOPE Financial Dignity Centers (featuring 700 Credit Score Communities), Banking on Our Future and our newest division, HOPE Business In A Box (inclusive of the Gallup-HOPE Index), and has now been on the move for 20 years, serving South Central Los Angeles and countless underserved communities across the country; even around the world, just like it.  

Here is a quick snapshot of our global results (not including the work and results of Global Dignity, a sister organization to Operation HOPE):

$1.4 billion – the amount raised and invested by HOPE in and for the under-served population, from private and public sources. 

1,000 Plus - the number low-wealth homeowners and small business owners created and funded with responsible mortgage and small business loans.   

Just one of these countless minority owned small business success stories is Drobe Clothing (http://www.drobe.com/Story.html). I purchase all of my professional suits from this HOPE success story, paying full retail, which is recycling black dollars too. Drobe was created by a young black man, not much older than myself when I started Operation HOPE, and now it employs 6 local people, pays its local taxes, and in so doing adds to the whole of Los Angeles.  This is the real story of where most jobs come from.

$500 Million - the value of the subprime mortgages that the Mortgage HOPE Crisis Hotline has modified or restructured in the subprime crisis, at no cost to the borrower. 

155,243 – the number of individuals directly assisted by the National Mortgage HOPE Crisis Hotline.

241,577 – the number of individuals educated in the homebuyer, credit, small business, EITC, and foreclosure prevention workshops.

150,000 – the number of individuals HOPE served in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  And we are still there, serving others years after.

$15 Million – the amount of Earned Income Tax Credits funded to survivors of Hurricane Katrina alone.

273 – the number of cities in the U.S. and South Africa where HOPE currently exists.

5,000 – number of current HOPE partnerships with private sector companies, non-profit organizations, schools and government entities.

30,369 – the number youth and adults educated through the Banking on Our Future program in South Africa alone.

45,828 – the number HOPE Cyber Cafés memberships, including the Cyber Cafe at 3721 South La Brea Avenue, in L.A.

2,000,000 – individuals served to date through HOPE’s Empowerment programs, Banking on Our Future, the HOPE Financial Dignity Centers and HOPE Coalition America.

Today, HOPE is headquartered at Wilshire Boulevard and Hope Street in Downtown, L.A. and led there by our president and chief operating officer Mr. Bill Walbrecher.

This is what I mean by Making Smart Sexy

When I walked into the reception area for the White House Urban Entrepreneurship Forum, Philadelphia, this is what I saw. Two young black men and their MacBook computers, focused on "making smart sexy" in their lives. Inspiring. These two young men attend Temple University, Fox School of Business, in Philadelphia.

With more than 50% of young black men in America dropping out of high-school today, this is a welcome sight for sore eyes.

 

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

- Posted from my iPhone

Operation HOPE is proud to announce today the launch of the New OperationHOPE.org—a redesigned, reimagined portal to the world of Financial Literacy.

 

 With this new website, Operation HOPE will revolutionize how financial education is addressed not just in this country, but the world. Built on a powerful web 2.0 platform, the new OperationHOPE.org harnesses the transformative power of the social web and deeply integrates with our new blog and growing social networks on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. 

This website knows no race, no class and no country. It’s both local and global. Here, on the internet, is where we will reset the system, change the rules of the game and propel the Silver Rights Movement for financial literacy and economic empowerment into the mainstream of American discourse.

Young black men standing for hope, and what's right in our community

With all the negative discussions swirling around with respect to the state of young black men in America (including my own biting commentaries), this sight brought teams to my eyes last night, at our HOPE Center, Washington, D.C.-Anacostia.  These young black men were WORKING, at night, as part of a cleaning and organizing crew, for a women and minority owned business we work with.  There were all ABOUT something, and are committed to "making smart sexy again" in and for our community.  

This is the dignity that "work" provides.

Go young black men. Bo....

Onward with HOPE,

John Hope Bryant is founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE, bestselling author of LOVE LEADERSHIP: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World (Jossey-Bass), and a member of the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability for President Barack Obama

 

Happy Birthday to my mentor Quincy Jones

This Monday was a special day for our planet, as it was my mentor Quincy Jones birthday (and my other mentor, Ambassador Andrew Young, had his birthday last week).   

This man just seems to get younger from year to year, and is always "present" in the moment.  I have learned so much from this amazing man and humble child of God.  For someone who is literally a living icon in the world of entertainment, music, entrepreneurship and global philanthropy, Q (which is what his friends call him) is one of the most humble brothers and global leaders I have ever met.  A great man who has literally changed our world in his lifetime, and has played a role in the history of "others" -- but you would never know by talking to him.  The man never speaks about himself.  In an hour-long conversation, he is speaking of others, and how we can "impact our world," at least 90% of the time.  And his view is always broad and global.  How inspiring.

Here is very quick summary on the amazing life of Q:

John Hope Bryant on the High School Dropout Epidemic in America: and a Solution

 

Coming up in Compton, California and South Central, Los Angeles, education was still viewed as a way out of poverty.  My mother Juanita Smith, and my father Johnnie Will Smith, would accept nothing short of an excellent educational experience for me, as well as my brother Dave ("Donnie") D. Harris, and my sister Mara ("Montie") Lamont Hoskins.  They pushed us, to do better and to have more than they had.  They pushed us, to "be more."

I remember (with help from my sister Montie) how mom quite her job early in my childhood so that she could spend more time with me.  But she did not quite her job and simply sit around the house with me.  Ms. Juanita Smith opened her own daycare business, taking care of me for free (actually now, being paid for the pleasure) and other neighborhood children for a modest fee.

John Hope Bryant introduces the Wikia-Operation HOPE Global Money Initiative

 

 

 

Happy Birthday month to me.....

 
 

                                                                                                         February 28, 2011

Dear friends of HOPE,

My birthday wish was simple; a "world better," because we were here. We simply must leave the world better than the way we found it, or what's the point really? Certainly, Operation HOPE should be adding real and meaningful value in the lives of people, or we should forfeit our right to play on the field of change.

And so, on the occasion of my birthday month (I was born February, 1966), I am honored to share with you a couple very significant benchmarks for the organization I founded 18 plus years ago, Operation HOPE, in the aftermath of the Rodney King civil unrest of 1992 in South Los Angeles.