John Hope Bryant

A Personal Letter from Operation HOPE Founder, Chairman, and CEO John Hope Bryant and Ambassador Andrew Young

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. 

2012 marked new heights for HOPE's silver rights movement as it continued to reach out and empower underserved populations in new and innovative ways. HOPE divisions currently serving the community include:

 

• Banking on Our Future, focused on keeping the most at-risk youth from repeating the cycles of poverty and despair 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." 

 

• HOPE Business-In-A-Box/Gallup-HOPE Index, focused on inspiring a generation of young people to become future American assets of economic energy, small business and entrepreneurship.

 

• HOPE Financial Dignity Centers, including our newest HOPE Financial Dignity Center at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr''s Ebenezer Church in Atlanta, Georgia, are 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 the 700 Credit Scores Communities Initiative.  The HOPE Center at Ebenezer marks our 11th HOPE Center across the nation, and is the proud anchor for the new Martin Luther King. Sr. Community Resource Complex next to Ebenezer Church.  Most people know that Daddy King, as he was lovingly called, co-pastored Ebenezer Church with his son, Dr. King, but what they don't know is that Daddy King served on the board of a bank for 40 years.  Even more than 50 years ago, the King legacy was alive with civil rights, and silver rights empowerment, too. A special thank you to our HOPE Center signature partners, including Bank of the West and Union Bank on the west coast, E*TRADE FINANCIAL in New York City and Washington, DC, and at Ebenezer in Atlanta, FINANCIAL SERVICES ROUNDTABLE members SunTrust Bank, State Farm Insurance, LPL Financial/NestWise, Wells Fargo Bank,MasterCard, and BMO Harris Bank, along with supporting partners including the Coca-Cola Company,Kaplan University, Equifax, the United Way of Greater Atlanta, amongst others.

 

• HOPE Coalition America, 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. 

 

• HOPE Government Relations & Public Policy, and HOPE Forums, which both advance responsible public policy and help to shape, engaged public opinion.  The recent HOPE Global Financial Dignity Summitfeaturing U.S. 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.

Read the complete personal letter on the HOPE Blog here.

FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg To Be Featured in HOPE Forum, Atlanta

Join the King Center and Celebrate #MLK in the #KINGSDREAM #IAMFREEDOM Campaign

 

Join my friend Dr. Bernice King, CEO of the King Center, for this important campaign saluting her father's contribution in and to this great world, delivered through your eyes!  Share what you are doing to celebrate and salute Dr. King, through service this week!  I am.

Please share on Facebook, Twitter and other social media, today.

Okay, let's go.

 

John Hope Bryant is a thought leader, founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE and Bryant Group Companies, Inc. Magazine/CEO READ bestselling business author of LOVE LEADERSHIP: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World (Jossey-Bass), the only African-American bestselling business author in America, and is chairman of the Subcommittee for the Under-Served and Community Empowerment for the U.S. President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability, for President Barack Obama.  Mr. Bryant is the co-founder of the Gallup-HOPE Index, the only national research poll on youth financial dignity and youth economic energy in the U.S. He is also a co-founder of Global Dignity with HRH Crown Prince Haakon of Norway and Professor Pekka Himanen of Finland. Global Dignity is affiliated with the Forum of Young Global Leaders and the World Economic Forum.  Mr. Bryant is a though leader represented by the Bright Sight Group for public speaking. Mr. Bryant serves on the board of directors of Ares Commercial Real Estate Corporation, an NYSE Euronext publicly traded company, and a division of $54 billion Ares Capital.

 

A Salute to a Special Man: Steve Bartlett

It is with great honor and personal privilege that I take a moment to salute one of my personal heroes in life. Mr. Steve Bartlett.

Steve is the former mayor of Dallas, Texas, the former US Congressman (two terms) from Texas, and most recently, the CEO of the prestigious FINANCIAL SERVICES ROUNDTABLE, based in Washington, DC.

Steve is best known for his fierce, professional, sophisticated and effective representation of the 100 largest financial companies in America, in Washington, DC and respect to their public policy positions, amongst policy makers.  I know a different Steve Bartlett. 

The man I know, on a more personal level, happens to be very spiritual and a believer, a committed social advocate, even donating his time on mission work in Africa when not working in Washington, DC.  I know a man who would hang up one minute from a US congressman, and pick up the phone in the next, speaking with me about silver rights, and grassroots community change.

The man I know supported an effort for the FINANCIAL SERVICES ROUNDTABLE to raise $5 million to support our new HOPE Financial Dignity Center Atlanta, at Ebenezer Church (Dr. King's church, now pastored by friend Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock), and then led that said effort himself, raising $4 million of the $5 million needed with personal phone calls.*

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

HOPE Global Financial Dignity Summit, 2012, Featuring Dr. Bernice King

 

Dr. Bernice A. King provides keynote remarks at the closing session of the HOPE Global Financial Dignity Summit on November 15, 2012, with an introduction by HOPE Founder, Chairman and CEO John Hope Bryant.  She is brilliant.

 

 

 

Ebenezer Church Cuts Ribbon to the Martin Luther King, Sr. Community Resource in Atlanta, Georgia

 

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I was honored to stand with my friend and partner, Reverend Dr. Raphael Warnock and members of the King and Ebenezer families as we cut the ribbon to the new Martin Luther King, Sr. Community Resource Complex at the historic Ebenezer Church in Atlanta, Georgia.

Next week we will cut the ribbon to the new HOPE Financial Dignity Center, Atlanta at Ebenezer, which is the anchor for the new Martin Luther King, Sr. Community Resource Complex.  The global community is welcome to join us here on November 14th, 2012, for the first day of our global summit, as we celebrate "community."

Finally, I am honored to report that my friend Reverend Dr. Bernice King, the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., will give remarks at the close of the global summit, just prior to the closing plenary entitled, WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE: Chaos or Community, which is also the title to her late father's final book on the movement.

 

 

John Hope Bryant Open Letter to Leaders, August, 2012

 

                                                                                                                            August 16, 2012

 

An Open Letter to Leaders

For 20 years Operation HOPE has been about progress for the underserved here in America and around the world.  Now, on our 20th anniversary in 2012, we have hit the internal and external 'reset' button with respect to our strategic focus, our approach, operations, and even the results we seek for those we serve.  What comes next sets us up for the next 20 years. 

For 20 years HOPE was structured around a triangle approach to leadership, where my senior leadership team and I issued directives and the rest of the organization responded, or worse, simply waited for direction.  This approach was actually appropriate for a start-up trying to forge and frame its culture and way of operating.  In June, 2012, we completed an internal restructure around a diamond approach to leadership, where my senior team and I are at the bottom of the triangle, supporting our newly minted group of top-line division presidents, portfolio leaders, local CEOs, market presidents and others who now take 'ownership' of the HOPE brand wherever they live, work and operate.  Accordingly, it is with great pleasure that I announce the following promotions and key appointments:

Operation HOPE at 20: A Look at Who We IMPACT

 

A special thank you to Rod McGrew, global chief of brand for Operation HOPE, for producing this summary of Operation HOPE's impact in the lives of people.  Real people. Our clients. The more than 1.5M we have served over the last 20 years.

HOPE Atlanta Team Tours the Coming HOPE Center at Ebenezer

On April 9, 2012 the Operation HOPE Atlanta Team traveled to the Ebenezer Baptist Church to partake in the first of many “Hard Hat Tours” of the new HOPE Center Atlanta at Ebenezer which is currently under construction. The experience gave the team a sneak peek into the progress of the construction efforts which is now at 45% completion. 

Read the compete story at the HOPE Blog.