John Hope Bryant

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.  

Homeownership Empowerment Expo with Congresswoman Janice Hahn and City of Carson Mayor Dear This Weekend

 

Son of Carson, California, Lance Triggs, division president for Operation HOPE, returns to his home city this weekend with real resources, and solutions, to help, lift, advance the lives of those who now call Carson, California home.

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I was so very happy to hear that Operation HOPE's own Lance Triggs, who also happens to be a very dear, life-long friend to me, joined together and in partnership with another dear friend, U.S. Congresswoman Janice Hahn, along with City of Carson Mayor Dear, to organize a very successful Homeownership Empowerment Expo in Lance's hometown of Carson, California.

The prodigal son returned home in a big way. He and HOPE had just under 600 participants in attendance (capacity was 450). Major Banks (Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi, Ocwen -- formerly GMAC) were all represented to provide first time home buyer and loan modification assistance.

Bravo Lance Triggs.  You are a living testimony to and for all the good that your amazing parents poured into you, in those critical early developmental years living in Carson, Calfornia. I am so proud to see you now as the man you are, president of the HOPE Financial Dignity Center division nationwide, and now bringing hope, silver rights empowerment and solutions back to the people of Carson.

Lance, you are indeed, I believe, what Dr. King had in mind my friend. Saluting Lance Triggs, and all that he has done to advance our communities and silver rights over more than 18 years with Operation HOPE!

 

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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 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. 

 

 

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.

The Cecil L. Murray Center for Community Engagement at USC, and Union Bank, Host Local Financial Inclusion Meeting in South Los Angeles, California

Today, the Cecil L. Murray Center for Community Engagement and executives from Union Bank (Pierre Gabis, Julius Robinson, and others) hosted a Local Financial Inclusion Meeting (LFIM) which brought together some of the best minds from community, faith, academia, government and the private sector -- to begin to frame out a vision for what comes next in our economy.

These meetings are part of an independent series of meetings happening throughout the U.S. and around the world, focused on one question: "how do we make free enterprise work for the so-called poor."  

The results of these deliberations are all recorded and uploaded to the global eLibrary for the HOPE Global Financial Dignity Summit, and the best ideas will be incorporated into a summary report that will be sent to the President of the United States and G20 leaders in January, 2013, as the output result of the HOPE Global Financial Dignity Summit, 2012.

 

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Commendations to the Cecil L. Murray Center for Community Engagement at USC, and Union Bank leadership for making this happen.  A special thank you to Reverend Dr. Cecil "Chip" Murray for all of his leadership, vision and help in making this happen, and as well to our own Lance Triggs, CEO of Operation HOPE, Los Angeles, who assisted with facilitating the meeting.

For others seeking to host their own LFIM meeting, contact HOPE Forum deputy director, Jodi Brockington.

 

 

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 Los Angeles is #3 Producer for Wells Fargo Neighborhood Lift Program for New Ownership

I just learned that Operation HOPE, Los Angeles, led by the new CEO for HOPE L.A., Lance Triggs, is the #3 producer for new homeowners tied to the Wells Fargo Neighborhood Lift Program dedicated to Los Angeles region.

At $30,000 per homeownership grant, this is a big deal, and really impacts and CHANGES the lives of real people, in real neighborhoods, communities and families.

This is a big, big deal, and I am proud of my HOPE Los Angeles team for helping to lead the charge here to get low-wealth and underserved individuals and families into homes. If you know of someone who wants to become a new homeowner, and could use not only a responsible mortgage, but up to a $30,000 grant to help, contact our local L.A. CEO, Lance Triggs.

This global economic crisis is a big problem for all, but it also a big opportunity. Let's focus on rainbows after storms. You cannot have a rainbow, unless you have a storm first. Let's create some good for people, in response to all the historic economic pain.

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 iPad2

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.

From the Huffington Post: HOPE Business-In-A-Box, My Plan for the Re-Winning of America

 

This is my generational plan for everything.

Jim Clifton, the chairman and CEO of Gallup, projects in his groundbreaking book The Coming Jobs War, that global GDP will be $200 trillion by 2040. Global GDP is presently approximately $60 trillion. That means that the next 28 years is an all-out fight for who gets the remaining $140 trillion. Who gets their fair share of the remaining $140 trillion in untapped global GDP will determine everything in the world; who leads the free world; who has the biggest military budget for the purpose of protection and global democratic stability; who can afford international aid; or being charitable to nations and people in need. What nation gets to determine global priorities.

John Hope Bryant

Bestselling business leadership author and philanthropic entrepreneur

 

 

 

Some think that this war has already been fought, and America has lost. Underscoring this misnomer, according to Gallup, approximately 53 percent of Americans today believe that China is already the economic leader of the free world, even though China's GDP is a mere $7 trillion, if you believe their numbers, and U.S. GDP is a robust $15 trillion plus, or more than twice as big. To put our GDP into perspective, you can place two or three of the largest economies in the world into our economy, add South Africa, Mexico and several other economies for good measure -- and you still have room. America is no punk, and our story is far from over. Remember, the world counted America out 20 years when it was universally assumed that Japan would rule the world, and us too. That bet was wrong, and the China bet could be wrong, too.

Read the complete article here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Operation HOPE at 20: A Look Back

Operation HOPE was born 20 years ago, May 5th, 1992.  And while no one cared much about "our story" back then, many, many more are increasingly interested today.  As our profile increases over the years, and around the world, so understandably will the curiosity. Accordingly, over the next few weeks and months, and during our 2012 anniversary year, I and others will seek to properly layout the true and accurate Operation HOPE story.  And thanks to the Internet and its incredible time-dated memory, this job will be made much easier (smile).  Here are but two of the time dated articles which chronicle the alliance at the time.