John Hope Bryant

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. 

John Hope Bryant and Operation HOPE at SEDCO Holdings, Saudi Arabia: Sparking the Entrepreneurship Generation

 

From Gallup Business Journal: Dead Wrong ~ America's Economic Assumptions

 

The U.S. could go broke due to faulty leadership assumptions. Gallup's CEO offers three correct assumptions that, if acted on, would save the American economy.

by Jim Clifton

Chairman and CEO of Gallup

During my 40 years at Gallup, I've observed that one of the main reasons very talented leaders fail is because their thinking failed them. Not their leadership or management skills, which in many cases are just fine, but their thinking. Specifically, failed leaders in business and politics are usually wrong about a core premise that drives all their strategies. Because they are so wrong about that premise, every subsequent decision they make is bad.

An innovation has zero value until a talented businessperson finds a customer for it.

Let me illustrate. Thirty years ago, I conducted a project in a Midwestern city for a group of talented investors and businesspeople. This was a time when McDonald's franchises were growing quickly, and these businesspeople wanted to emulate the fast-food chain's success. They came to the conclusion that McDonald's was soaring because of one key attribute: speed of service.

So these smart, talented people built everything around this one assumption, and they committed to delivering food faster. Pneumatic tubes shot the food to the customer, and the company touted its service as the fastest. They even named the chain "Chutes."

As I recall, they did get hamburgers and fries to their customers faster than McDonald's did. They achieved their goal. Yet they went broke because we discovered after the fact that the primary reason McDonald's was exploding was because customers loved the taste of their food -- especially the french fries. Speed was not the core reason McDonald's customers ate there; taste was. Chutes' core assumption was wrong, and they went broke.

I could share hundreds of examples like this. Here's another one with far greater implications for the world. Many people in the highest levels of U.S. government think that 1.5 billion Muslims are uncomfortable with the West because they "hate us for our freedom" and that "religion divides us." So, leaders build policy -- war, economic sanctions, and anti-terror campaigns -- around these assumptions. But Gallup World Poll data tell another story entirely.

The world's Muslims don't hate us because of our freedom or our way of life or because they're religious fanatics. Gallup finds that their discomfort comes predominantly from a hopelessness rooted in economic despair and joblessness. This is an economic problem, not a religious one. Yet too often, policies are created around these wrong assumptions.

When Tunisian food vendor Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire, thus igniting the Arab Spring, he didn't yell, "Death to America" or "Allahu akbar." He cried out, "I just want to work!"

Solving Poverty: Dr. King's Dream and Silver Rights Not Such a New Idea

John Hope Bryant

Bestselling business leadership author and philanthropic entrepreneur

Solving Poverty: Dr. King's Dream and Silver Rights Not Such a New Idea

As we reflect this year on the 84th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the 50th anniversary of the "I Have A Dream" speech, I think about the vast unfinished agenda of Dr. King, launched as the third phase of his vision for a world better. Dr. King had focused first on social justice, then on ending war, and his last and final work was focused on poverty.

His Poor People's Campaign, originally inspired by Mrs. Marian Wright Edelman, now founder of the Children's Defense Fund, focused on eradicating poverty through a radical movement of a government sponsored living wage for all, and on some level the redistribution of the wealth by the top 3 percent. And given his background as a liberal, lettered man of the cloth, Dr. King's approach to poverty eradication made total and complete sense to him, and at that time.

The government had much to say and do with respect to the issues of justice and freedom for blacks, the poor and the underserved in 20th-century America. Further, Dr. King was not a banker or an investor, nor businessman, as his dad was. Dr. King was a man of the cloth, total and complete, and he executed on his vision from God as he saw it, almost perfectly. He did what he was supposed to do, and expected us to do the rest.

Sadly, Dr. King's life and life mission was cut short and he did not get the chance to participate in even the first march of the Poor People's Campaign. He gave his last speech, and led his last march in support of garbage workers in Memphis, Tennessee, fighting for a living wage, and dignity, for them. Looking forward, it could be said that Black America along with the rest of us have had our Biblical "lost in the wilderness period," over the last 40-plus years since his death, all was not lost.

Today, Mrs. Marian Wright Edelman's niece, Ms. Deborah Wright, is CEO of Carver Federal Bank, the largest black bank in America today, with close to $1 billion in assets

Read, comment and share the complete article here.

 

HOPE Business In A Box ~ An Initiative That Will Change America

 

And here is our official HOPE Business In A Box video for 2013. Enjoy.

Keep your eyes peeled for our America 2020 Campaign, our national campaign to save America, by Americans, everyday between now and 2020.

Let's go.

 

 

 

Presenting the Operation HOPE Business in a Box, Atlanta Pilot Program Competition

 

This short video says it all. It is the "magic" that we have been talking about. That I have been dreaming about, ever since I came up with the vision of and for HOPE Business In A Box this time last year on my my birthday.  My birthday is February 6th, 2013, and seeing this vision made real is the best birthday present that this "proud pappa" could have (smile).

Thank you to Mary Hagerty, president of the HOPE Youth Empowerment Group, the Atlanta team, led by Jay Bailey, Tara Dennis (youth agenda) and others there, along with everyone who helped to make this real.  

A special thank you to Ms. Natasha L. Foreman, MBA, dedicated HOPE Corps volunteer, small business owner and the HOPE Business In A Box coordinator in Atlanta, Georgia.  She worked tirelessly to see this through from concept to reality for these bright young kids (our leaders for the future) in Atlanta.  

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.

After We Inaugurate Our President, Welcome Our New Entrepreneurship Generation: Join Us for the Gallup-HOPE Index Forum, Washington, DC, 2013

For those interested in learning more about the Gallup-HOPE Index Forum, 2013, contact Jodi Brockington, deputy director of HOPE Forums.

 

 

A New Introduction Video Featuring HOPE Business In A Box, Powered by the Gallup-HOPE Index

Check it out and be inspired to change the lives of a generation.  Go to Operation HOPE for more details on the HOPE Business In A Box innovation, and the Gallup-HOPE Index that powers it.

Gallup Chief Executive Officer, Jim Clifton Joins Operation HOPE National Board of Directors

Operation HOPE (HOPE) recently announced the addition of Jim Clifton, chief executive officer of the Gallup Organization to its National Board of Directors. With this appointment, Mr. Clifton becomes Operation HOPE’s newest ambassador for its youth economic energy (youth entrepreneurship and job creation) campaign, which provides programs and resources to promote global dignity and free enterprise in underserved communities.

In 2010 Operation HOPE and Gallup formed a game-changing partnership around the measurement of economic energy in America's youth. With this partnership came a 5 million dollar commitment from Gallup to America's schools through HOPE and 100 year commitment to host the annual Gallup-HOPE Index Forum, reporting out to national leaders on the level of increased economic energy of our youth.

As a board member for HOPE, Mr. Clifton’s areas of focus will include wiring America's schools for economic energy measurement and metrics and pulling the trigger on the Gallup-HOPE Index partnership and Gallup 100 year commitment around same.