John Hope Bryant

Saluting Operation HOPE's Own Jena Roscoe

 

Jena Roscoe serves as First Senior Vice President and Chief of Government Affairs and Public Policy, Operation HOPE. Ms. Roscoe is the first Senior Director of the East Coast Regional Corporate Headquarters at Gallup in Washington, DC.  

Jena Roscoe is in charge of the HOPE Office of Government Relations and Public Policy, which is a global responsibility.  In this post Ms. Roscoe has managed the relationship of and between three Presidential Administrations, from (Democrat) President Bill Clinton to (Republican) President George W. Bush, to (Democrat) President Barack Obama.

During her tenture at Operation HOPE, Ms. Jena Roscoe has led or otherwise helped to marshall in almost every major national private/public partnership and national government agreement with HOPE over the past decade; including our HOPE Coalition America national agreement with FEMA, our national agreements with the FDIC, the Veterans Administration, the creation of the SBA Office of Entrepreneurship Education, and the Operation HOPE 5-year partnership with the FINANCIAL SERVICES ROUNDTABLE, amongst many others.  

Ms. Roscoe manages John Hope Bryant's personal public policy portfolio, including his involvement as a Presidential Appointee to the U.S. CDFI Fund at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy, the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability, the portfolio of more than 100 Local Financial Literacy Councils for the Subcommittee on the Underserved and Community Empowerment for the President's Council, under President Barack Obama.

Banking on Our Future and 100 HOPE Corps Volunteers Bring Financial Literacy Empowerment to Silver Springs, Maryland

Recently my Operation HOPE, Washington, DC and Operation HOPE, Maryland teams came together and had a very successful Banking on our Future volunteer event at Francis Scott Key Middle School in Silver Spring, MD. There were over 100 HOPE Corps volunteers present and involved, and included employees from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Women in Housing and Finance, Capital One, Fannie Mae, M&T Bank, Bank of India, BB&T Bank, Sandy Spring Bank, Bank of America, First Mariner Bank, FDIC, City First Bank, ETrade Bank, Wells Fargo, Bank of Georgetown, and FINRA.

A special thank you to my friend and financial dignity supporter, Maryland State Comptroller Peter Franchot, who teamed up with US Comptroller of the Currency Barry Wides to teach a Banking on Our Future financial literacy class. Maryland Comptroller Franchot and US Deputy Comptroller Wides also spoke to the volunteers about Franchot's mission to get each county in Maryland to adopt a graduation requirement for a financial literacy class in the senior year. Severak counties have already signed on to support this financial dignity leadership initiative of Comptroller Franchot.  Operation HOPE certainly supports him.

A special acknowledgement to Jackie Starr, who is our Operation HOPE market president for the Washington, D.C. and Maryland.

Operation HOPE, Washington, DC and Operation HOPE, Maryland are part of the larger mission of Operation HOPE, which is now a leading global provider of financial literacy to financial dignity empowerment services for the underserved, the working poor and the struggling middle class.

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 all, 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.

 

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Busy on a Saturday: HOPE Financial Dignity Center, Anacostia-Washington, D.C.

This weekend our own Jena Roscoe, senior vice president for government relations and public policy at Operation HOPE, stopped by our HOPE Financial Dignity Center, Anacostia-Washington, D.C. with her mother, Ms. Wilma Roscoe.

The DC HOPE Center was filled with individuas using the computers in the HOPE Inner-City Cyber Cafe, and the conference room was full of an aspiring entrepreneurship class. Our own Kevin Parker taught the class.  On Friday, March 8th, 2013,  the HOPE Center, Washington, D.C, will host the National Consumer Protection Week Session where Dr. Camille Bussette, Director of the Office of Financial Education at the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will return for the second year to speak. Dr. Bussette will meet with and engage with local residents and attendees about the agency's work, and answer questions regarding consumer protection issues, such as student loan debt, credit card and identity theft concerns, amonst others.  Our own Keith Parker will be leading our discussion during this session.

For information on the HOPE Center, Anacostia-Washington, D.C., and how you can get involved and engaged check here.

Operation HOPE and HUD Counseling: Mortgage HOPE Crisis Hotline Results

Lance Triggs, who is president of HOPE Financial Dignity Centers nationally, and CEO of Operation HOPE, Los Angeles, reports in on the following results around our Mortgage HOPE Crisis Hotline work, which involves our national HUD approved counselors and financial dignity counseling programs.

Below is a highlight summary:

 2008 - 2012  RESULTS

• OVER 166,000 incoming calls.
• OVER $560 million in loans modified or restructured.
• Educated and assisted over 26,000 people on foreclosure prevention.
• Assigned 8,000 of those individuals to a counselor for further assistance Average loan amount per loan modification was $341,463.

MORTGAGE CRISIS HOTLINE CLIENT SURVEY 

507 survey responses after receiving a loan modification:

• 80.4% are still current with their mortgage.
• Only 9% are currently late (1-6 months) with their mortgage. 
• 3% sold their home.
• 93% have not defaulted on their loan.

I am very proud of my Operation HOPE team led by Lance Triggs.

A special thank you to lead sponsors and partners that have underwritten major components of Lance Triggs' division, including E Trade Financial, Bank of the West, Union Bank, CoreLogic, JP Morgan Chase and so many others.

 

 

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.

Report from the Council Subcommittee on the Underserved and Community Empowerment

My chairmanship of the Subcommittee on the Underserved and Community Empowerment for the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability for President Barack Obama and the Obama Administration has focused on standing up a series of Local Financial Literacy Councils across the nation. Working in close cooperation with my friend and colleague Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz, Chair of the Council Subcommittee on Partnership, we originally announced a goal of 25 local Councils in 2012, and now report well over 100 Local Council commitments.

One of our early wins, which under Washington, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray become operationalized earlier this year and very active, is the Washington, D.C. (District of Columbia) Financial Literacy Council. Accordingly, it gives me great pleasure to report a recent deliverable from the DC Financial Literacy Council:

On Wednesday November 28th, The DC State Board of Education voted unanimously to require high school students to take a course in financial literacy upon graduation.  The DC State Board of Education and The Financial Literacy Council will meet to discuss further implementation requirements.  

 

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.

John Hope Bryant and Dick Gregory at 28th National Congress of Black Wowen

Operation HOPE, Washington, DC Anniversary Recognition Event Close to 100% Capacity.

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 Opens New Regional Office at Gallup Building in Washington, DC

Operation HOPE is expanding its reach in the Mid-Atlantic Region, securing office space for administrative use at the Gallup Building in Washington, DC.  More than a hundred people gathered at the Gallup headquarters on July 16th to celebrate the official Grand Opening.

During a packed reception, the Honorable Thomas M. Hoenig, Board Member FDIC made special remarks to crowded audience.  Gallup CEO and Chairman, Jim Clifton was on hand to lend to the importance of the occasion and speak about Gallup’s commitment to the “silver rights” empowerment organization and the Gallup-HOPE Index.