John Hope Bryant

HOPE Snippet: Operation HOPE, Inc. (HOPE) is recruiting for interns nationwide!

HOPE is looking for dedicated and PASSIONATE young adults to take leadership of meaningful projects to help underserved communities nationwide.  HOPE is seeking young leaders to intern in the following HOPE departments:

• HOPE Financial Dignity Centers
• HOPE Business in A Box
• Project Restore HOPE: Hurricane Sandy
• HOPE Youth Empowerment Group (BOOF, and BOOF CE)
• HOPE Global Initiatives
• HOPE Forums

Compliment your academic success with our in-depth, hands-on internship programs. As a HOPE intern you will have the opportunity to:

• Engage a network of executive professionals
• Immerse yourself in rewarding and stimulating projects
• Gain insight into the contemporary global financial environment
• Attend weekly leadership workshops

Be a part of the next generation for economic empowerment and Silver Rights movement!

Visit www.operationhope.org/fellows to learn more!

Related articles

Global Dignity, USA Reports Results

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

Who is America's $10 Trillion Man You Have Never Met?

Operation HOPE Receives $200,00 Award from UPS to Help Empower Youth and to Provide Sandy Assistance

The Secret Weapon That Will Save U.S. Entrepreneurship

January's Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index survey has me more frightened than ever about America’s future.

I already knew that our GDP was stalling, if not falling. The Department of Commerce reported recently that GDP declined in the fourth quarter of last year, at an annualized rate of 0.1%. Meanwhile a minimum GDP of 2.5% is required just to tread water economically, in my view, though I think we really need GDP growth of about 4.5% to get the economy humming again.

And I already knew that unemployment was stuck at right around 8%; when you add in those who are “underemployed,” according to Gallup data, it jumps to 17%. These figures tell the story of what was a prosperous and stable democracy that’s now going nowhere.

But the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index survey reveals the biggest nightmare metric of all: 30% of small-business owners are worried they may not be in business in 12 months. I am also worried because new business startups have fallen below 400,000 per year, and the country needs a bare minimum of 1 million new startups annually, in my estimate, to keep the economy running. We cannot, on top of this, have existing companies going out of business.

These findings are so alarming because the total number of U.S. employees within small businesses is significantly larger than in big business. The fact is, new business startups mean everything to America, because without them, our GDP cannot grow and unemployment will continue to rise. The miracle of economic life in the United States begins with one business starting up -- that moment of conception, if you will.

Read the rest of the story here.

 

 

 

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.

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.

Bryant Stands with Expanding Group of HOPE Fellows in Washington, D.C.

I took a moment to get briefed from my incredible team of growing HOPE Fellows in our new Washington, D.C. Regional Office at the Gallup Building. They are nothing less than inspiring -- all of them.

HOPE Fellows are part of our HOPE FILE Program (HOPE Fellows, HOPE Interns and HOPE Loaned Executives) which is managed and led by our own Elaine Fischer.

Onward and with HOPE,

John Hope Bryant is a thought leader, founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE, 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 the U.S., 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 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.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

HOPE Fellows Stand with Gallup CEO Jim Clifton, Gallup-HOPE Index Advisory Board Co-Chair Landon Taylor, and of course former U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton

 

• 
• 

 

Operation HOPE Founder, Chairman and CEO John Hope Bryant and U.S. Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry at the OCC in Washington, D.C.

U.S. Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry and I stand in front of a portrait of the first Comptroller of the Currency, who was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in the early 20th century. Guess that proves that free enterprise and capitalism, and even those regulate them, can too be an authentic and genuine force for good in the world.

During our meeting I briefed the Comptroller on our newest innovations, including HOPE 700 Credit Score Initiatives, HOPE Business In A Box, the innovative work we continue to do HOPE Coaltion America and DHS/FEMA, around emergency financial and economic disaster preparedness, response and recovery, and our highly regarded Emergency Financial First Aid Kit or EFFAK.  I also briefed him on our efforts to become an incubator of young leadership talent with our HOPE Fellows and HOPE FILE Program.

I was honored to spend some quality time with Comptroller Curry, and I believe that the agency has a solid leader, and indeed a 'good man' in him.  I am proud to call him a new friend.

Deputy Comptroller for Community Affairs Barry Wides, and Jena Roscoe, Operation HOPE's chief of government relations and public policy, also joined me for the meeting at OCC headquarters in Washinghton, D.C. this week.  The Operation HOPE family has enjoyed a strong and long-standing relationship with the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency's office, as well as every Comptroller during the 20 year history of Operation HOPE itself.  The OCC leadership continues to get stronger and stronger, and that includes Comptroller Curry.

Onward and with HOPE,

 

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 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.

 

 

 

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.

Welcoming Operation HOPE’s Summer Fellows | Operation HOPE Blog

 

Read the complete story on this inspiring incoming class of great future leaders on the HOPE Blog below.

Welcoming Operation HOPE’s Summer Fellows | Operation HOPE Blog.