John Hope Bryant

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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Operation HOPE 21: Telling The Story of Our Founding

21 years ago, this day, May 5th, 2013, the bold vision of and for Operation HOPE was born in South Central Los Angeles, immediately following the Rodney King Riots of April 29th, 1992.

"Rainbows, after storms.  You cannot have a rainbow without a storm first."

After the Rodney King verdict came down, so many things just went dark in the community I loved so much. The community I still love.  But not all things were negative, in the days and weeks and months that followed.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters and her local leadership group, led by Brenda Shockley as I recall, stood up their vision of and for Community Build. Today, Congresswoman Waters serves on the financial services committee for Congress, continuing to push her agenda for her people.

Then City Counciman Mark Ridkey-Thomas, who today is an esteemed and accomplished lead member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.  I fondly remember Supervisor Ridley-Thomas for so many reasons, but a couple stand out for me.  Mark (as I respectfully call him as a friend) served on our first board of directors for Operation HOPE. I remember our parting conversation. It was our first letterhead. We were committed to "eradicating poverty across America," and Mark (Ridley-Thomas) wanted to eradicate poverty and empower people IN THE 8TH DISTRICT!  We were both right, but Councilman Ridley-Thomas was more right than me.  He was 100% focused on empowering and serving the people in the district he was elected to serve.  This impresses me now, as much as it impressed me then.  I was sad to see Ridley-Thomas leave our board back then, by I so respected "why" he did it.  I also got the phrase "With HOPE," which has become my global signature sign-off statement on all correspondence, from Mr. Ridley-Thomas.  Finally, back then I would say that Ridley-Thomas was the only sitting elected official who really knew and understood community development, community empowerment, and the power of financial dignity in one's life.  

John Hope Bryant and Operation HOPE Team Visits South Africa This Week

I am honored to be spending the week in South Africa this week, focused on our silver rights empowerment work at Operation HOPE, South Africa, being done in more than six provinces in the country.  

While here I will be encouraging a spirit of entrepreneurship, small business ownership and what I call individual job creation (self-employment projects) amongst the generation of young people coming up today in the country.  

These young people have benefited from the incredible and life-changing civil rights justice work done by the likes of former President Nelson Mandela, and my friend Archbishop-Emeritus Desmond Tutu, but all too often these same young people are not seeing that history and tradition translate into what I would call silver rights empowerment opportunities for all, today.  And that means they are then less interested in school, less interested in their families, less interested in "doing right," and less hope for themselves. And the most dangerous person in the world, is the person with no hope.

Our financial literacy work started here 6-years ago has been helpful, and I want to publicly thank the likes of Angela Motshekga, Sean Cleary, Ambassador Andrew Young and former mayor Herman Bailey, all who encouraged me early on to start the office here.  That said, it is not enough. 

50th Anniversary of the Letter from a Birmingham Jail, by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Tuesday, April 16th, 2013, not only is the date for the HOPE Forum discussion on the future of silver rights empowerment for all, at Dr. King and Daddy King's historic church, and the HOPE Financial Dignity Center Ebenezer now attached to it, it is also the very important 50th anniversary of Dr. King's famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

It is therefore very appropriate that one key Operation HOPE board member in the Southeast, Reverend Dr. Bernice A. King, the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., heads back to Birmingham, Alabama on this important day, in honor of her father's work and legacy.  We encourage all men and women of good will to join her there in Birmingham, Alabama.

And a friend of that movement, Operation HOPE, also stays behind in Dr. King's homebase of Atlanta, Georgia, hosting the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry (regulating more than $12 trillion in banking assets across the nation), in a continuing discussion around silver rights empowermernt for all, and how we advance entrepreneurship, ownership, opportunity and capital flow into the very low-wealth communities that Dr. King and his aide Andrew Young (now Ambassador Andrew Young), were so very concerned about.  

Support one anniversary event or the other, but in no case, should we decide to do nothing.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail was for me, arguably the best and important of Dr. King's writings.  Possibly even more powerful than his better known I Have A Dream speech in Washington, D.C.  That said, the work continues.  The work to empower and uplift the least of these God's children, even continues on the 50th anniversary of this great work, and Dr. King's great sacrifice.

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 thought leader represented by the Bright Sight Group for public speaking. Mr. Bryant serves on the board of directors of Ares Commercial Real Estate Corporation (NYSE: ACRE), a specialty finance company that is managed by an affiliate of Ares Management LLC, a global alternative asset manager with approximately $59 billion in committed capital under management as of December 31, 2012. 

 

 

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Bryant Reflects on Alabama Tornadoes: It Killed More Than Lives

I am so very pleased that Operation HOPE will soon be able to move its 'silver rights' empowerment agenda, and specifically our HOPE Office of Small Business & Entrepreneurship work focused on nurturing and bringing up growing small business, minority small business and entrepreneurship in the state.  I am particularly thankful to leaders in and out of the state that encouraged our engagement on the ground there in the weeks and months following these devastating tornadoes.  Finally, I want to thank the U.S. Economic Development Administration and its leadership for the federal support here, which will be amplified by and further supported with private sector support. More on our plans in and for the state and her people to come.

That said, I was so distressed that in the period immediately following the worst tornadoes recorded in the southern states, and Alabama in particular, Operation HOPE and I were not in a position to help. Ultimately, I was actually a little disappointed in myself.  We followed all the rules.  I and we waited to make sure we had covered all the appropriate bases, paid respect to all leaders at the state, county, city and local level, and we covered all the appropriate protocols as a national partner for FEMA around emergency financial disaster preparedness, response and recovery. We even opened up our national call center for HOPE Coalition America based in Poway, California, a donation made available through our partner CoreLogic.  And yes, of course we helped each and everyone of those that called us.  But what we should have done is different.  

We should have -- no I should have -- simply placed HOPE staff on the ground, immediately and at our own expense if need be. But we did as we were counseled, and on that point I am glad we paid our proper respect to leadership.

What breaks my heart are the countless thousands of poor and struggling low-wealth individuals and families, be they white, black or brown, who never had an opportunity to access the immense federal resources that were available to those impacted by the disaster; from enhanced FEMA support, to low-interest SBA loans for rebuilding, to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).  Furthermore, there was the that work I believe we could have done between survivors of disaster, along with the banks, credit unions, insurance companies and other private companies with which we have strong working relationships, and that had substantial investment in the state.  Work such as that we completed successfully for more than 200,000 survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

Operation HOPE Hosts CFPB Director Richard Cordray and CFPB Team in Atlanta, Georgia

Operation HOPE and the HOPE Team at the HOPE Financial Dignity Center Ebenezer, Atlanta were honored and pleased to recently provide an intimate tour of the new HOPE Center Ebenezer, along with the new Martin Luther King, Sr Community Center, dedicated to Daddy King, to CFPB Director Richard Cordray and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Director Cordray and the CFPB team were in Atlanta for a public hearing.  Operation HOPE was pleased to play a co-convening role for a roundtable on mortgage reform.

My sense of Director Cordray is that he is a good man genuinely trying to make a difference.

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.

 

 

An Invitation to Leaders: Operation HOPE and HOPE Forums to Host FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg at the HOPE Financial Dignity Center Ebenezer, Atlanta, Georgia

For information on how you might be able to participate, contact HOPE Forums Deputy Director Jodi Brockington.