Operation HOPE, the nation’s largest nonprofit dedicated to improving financial literacy, today announced that it has received a $2.5 million donation from its Founder, Chairman and CEO, John Hope Bryant. The donation was made in support of the immense progress the organization has made – particularly during the pandemic - in promoting financial literacy and wellbeing and to help ensure the resiliency of the organization’s workforce when they face personal or healthcare challenges.

Inspired by the growing need for credit counseling, financial literacy, and emergency preparedness/disaster relief – especially as more and more Americans have been dealt personal and financial blows during the pandemic, Mr. Bryant seeks to prove that putting personal wealth to good use in not only good practice, but also good business.

Half of the contribution will be designated to support Operation HOPE’s line employees by providing access to a “rainy day” account for every employee. In pre-pandemic America, 64% of adults did not have $400 for an unplanned event, and Mr. Bryant wants to ensure that Operation HOPE’s employees, like the clients it serves, have the resources to weather these types of unforeseen circumstances. Additionally, tenured employees will have access to an investment vehicle provided by Mr. Bryant. The remaining portion of the donation will include separate set-asides for Operation HOPE’s Financial Literacy for All (FL4A) and 1 Million Black Business (1MBB) initiatives as well as the Operation HOPE endowment and a capacity building campaign.

“It is my longstanding core belief that we can do well by doing good, and Operation HOPE was founded on that model. These last two years have tested this model in ways we could have never predicted, but the results are that Americans clearly need financial literacy skills, resources and education in order to ensure their own financial stability,” said Mr. Bryant. “My financial commitment today to Operation HOPE and its employees is an endorsement of my belief that this organization is critical in helping individuals build wealth for themselves and their families, build businesses to support their communities and build a stronger future for us all.”

John and Chaitra Dalton Bryant are honored to bestow to this gift to Operation HOPE and its employees, and plan to make an additional contribution in the future on behalf of the newly formed Bryant Family Foundation, which will be run by Ms. Bryant.

About Operation HOPE, Inc.

Since 1992, Operation HOPE has been moving America from civil rights to “silver rights” with the mission of making free enterprise and capitalism work for the underserved—disrupting poverty for millions of low and moderate-income youth and adults across the nation. Through its community uplift model, HOPE Inside, which received the 2016 Innovator of the Year recognition by American Banker magazine, Operation HOPE has served more than 4 million individuals and directed more than $3.2 billion in economic activity into disenfranchised communities—turning check-cashing customers into banking customers, renters into homeowners, small business dreamers into small business owners, minimum wage workers into living wage consumers, and uncertain disaster victims into financially empowered disaster survivors. For more information: www.OperationHOPE.org. Follow the HOPE conversation on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

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