welcome to the show you didn't get the memo we strive here to give you the viewer relevant informational factual content with each and every guest that we have on this show today i'm excited to in around for a very very long time and i'd like to just ask you if you would tell the viewers first of all what operation hope is and you know a little bit of background about th is a global mom prophetess dedicated to eradicating poverty through financial education so just like your program helps people out helps them understand more gives them if amazed because you know we don't know we don't know right so the more information someone has the better they can operate in their life we can operate on that principle too ok you know operation hope has been around for twenty three years it started with the founder who is john hope bryant author of two books one of which you have in your hand right now which is called how the poor can save capitalism just  recently bestseller all about three four different list right now but operation hope started with this young man he was in his mid twenty's he was living in malibu entrepreneur ever since he was a little  maybe a couple silly mistakes like we all do about money but he lost everything living out of his van basically for about nine months he had a good friend who was working at a part time job and a janitor how this world works when it comes to money and he was very me me me kind of a person right and right around the time when the rodney king riots hit back in ninety two or so he really had an ast experience where he realizes that all the buildings that were ablaze not one was a home and had moved him because he realized that when you own your own piece of iraq you treated very differently than you cremate running it right yes and he recalled a story of his  own their home and if there was some young thugs who were hanging out in front of the house you come out with her with her broom that she sweep on her front porch and say you guys got to go got to get away from here so fast forward to now to this point in time today we are located wow in fifty different locations one of united states we are moving forward in places like south africa the emirates we're doing great work in other parts of the country and it's just a blessing it's really a blessing to be a part of an organization that really wants to change how we look at money to develop the understanding of money and that's in essence what the operation hope does back in ninety three john brought together with the regulators in the bank profession down in los angeles which is where the headquarters is brought these folks together put them on a bus took them on a tour through south central literally two days after the riot they had a couple of motorcycles running along side of the bus and he did that because he wanted the bankers to see that not all the areas and called the ghetto are burnt out the brown are middle class there are blue collar their low income  communities who feel just as strongly about having a home that they can pass on to their children and have great pride and respect for their communities so that was our very first program we started it was called the community lending program and  so these bankers went back after the tour to their offices and their wonder how come we're not working with people in these communities up and now supporting them and so that's started that first program and again as i said we have many different visions of the organization three key ones that i want to mention and in fact that leads right into one of the questions that i have for you was how does operation hope help the citizens what types of resources a program said you talk about people in that regard and did so for a number of years with just as that started to settle down a little bit then this whole mortgage crises situation reared its ugly head right so we decided let's keep the lights on and let's see how we can serve people in that time we did that starting in about two thousand and seven and that period of time we have fielded more than three hundred thousand phone calls that come in this is a national economy we have helped manage at least forty thousand to fifty thousand families and helping them to either keep their homes that will create a modification plan support them and i think was about six to seven hundred million dollars saved in short sales are supporting people in order to keep their homes so we're really proud of that  that fact so that's the first division ok now that division also focuses on but partnerships with people like u p s american red cross is that we follow american red cross into an area so that as they are dealing with the main issues that people are dealing with we're back to helping them figure out how we can support them with those financial things because the thing about finances is that they their revenue runs through everything and so it's not it's not everything but it is connected to so much of our lives you know so that's the ho coalition of america peace then we have the youth peace and i like to i'm very interested in that we hear a lot of talk about you know what's not happening but i just love the fact that operation hope actually is focused on our young people absolutely they're our future they are future so and they're not only the future for our communities their future for this country absolutely you know because if we keep exporting our services and we keep going outside of this country to find people and i say this with one day some of these other developing countries could be number one again so we have to figure out a way and other really tap our resources internally and create mentoring opportunities as well so let's talk about the youth from the fourth grade up about their relationship with money very important thing to do we but we take people like you and others that you know and we ask you to come into a little come into the school system will train you want to have training put your own flavor on it but talked of these young people about their relationship with money what i mean by that talk about budgeting right talk about once a needs understanding the difference between ab and i will tell you of nothing is more addictive than going into a fourth grade class and talking to young people about money is amazing because it is so sharp and it's so bright and they asked tons of questions but the value of it is two things not only are you helping to educate them about finances and understanding the language of money but you also demonstrating that a beautiful graceful african american woman for example can be in front of a classroom and those same young people who look like you are checking you out you know and asking you questions and that impacts people because it's role models that make make a big difference i think i speak in a role models the last piece of this and i really love this program it's called and we just relatively started it over the last couple of years and it's called operation hopes is in the box and it's a youth attribute a real training program so give an example we go into the school system in fact in oakland we visited ways west lake school great school great principal we started off with educating all the students in the class on financial education and then we created a self selected group smaller group who are interested in going to a youth training program provided the financial education for the entire scope about six hundred students who go to school and then we off of those students an be an entrepreneur and then we give them up to fifty different businesses that you can start for under five hundred dollars and these kids team up in the class and for businesses like best friends have teamed up and created a business for example or individuals might do that and then they have a actually helped to sponsor having it at that particular school and they give these young people feedback and so what we want to do is narrowing it down to anywhere from five to ten winners we wind up giving them five hundred dollars out of the started business we also have a relationship with the new york stock exchange for a fund crowdfunding opportunity for the young people so after they started they can figure out a way to gain the little x additional dollars right but the best part of it what distinguishes from any other program is called the business role mo n just as much about them cares about their program that makes all the difference in the world and frankly even if these young people decide not to continue their business a couple years from now took what they've learned right look how they got a chance to have to view life from an owner's perspective you know from an employer's perspective and said from an employee perspective it was a life changing lessons so that mentor or what we call the business role model we asked them to give up one hour a week for ten weeks and then to simply meet with the kids at the tooth bakery she used to love making cookies she's developed the whole idea selling it to her classes to other kids in the school which is pretty remarkable now that's when she was in sixth grade she's in eighth grade today and by the way she plans to be a physician and should look at no longer we're going to look at the golden handcuffs you know you go to work at a job and you're there for twenty thirty forty years but they go watch but what we're doing is helping to bridge that gap because i think it's really important what i'm hearing you say operation hope what you guys are doing talk about phenomena no wonder you're talking about a solid for the country you're going global the reason for that is because there is such a need because when out of school there's no connection between education and aspiration so that's gave birth to this great program and we're just so thankful that was just taken off and now we have hope in a box a pattern these all over the country are gone and they're entrepreneurs and one of the things in this book i have to keep sure in this book you know how the poor can say capitalism is back in the day when abraham lincoln actually started it a bank and i want you to talk a little bit about that because slaves that was prose called the freemans man there you go he says position that bank right across the street from the white house so at night he can see the all apps burning inside the building and on this side was the treasury and as i was congress so he had was very typical of the man doing at times as long as i'm in this role there will only be white white men who are running this country and so he basically sabotaged the bank and one of the greatest spokesmen ever frederick douglas president of the bank and frederick douglass said that perhaps the closing of this bank emitted the failure of this bank right could be as significant as the slavery movement in this country has a very very serious about the impact of this in so think about it for a minute you know you often talk about didn't get the memo right just imagine just imagine how this country be today if every african american had that experience and was passed down by generation to generation which is done by other groups is not some gangster is going to take your money it could be a future c e o it could be someone who can make a real difference in this country and that's just so that's what we recognize and that's what that's indicative of hope because when you go to any kind of hope event are you coming to the soap center and this is a good place where you are now this hope inside center we treat people with self empowerment organizations so we treat people with the most respect we meet them where they are but we take them where they want to go i want to bring you back to just for a moment to talk about seven hundred credit exists ok you're sitting in a hope inside center right now right and so what exactly is was part of our credit and money management program right and it's also part of a larger initiative called project fifty one seventeen  for of the five million one million those children go through the hope is in a box program we talked about earlier right the other not nec the next one stands for one thousand hope in size and so not only do we want to have this available in banks which is what you're in right now but it could be a grocery store it could be  a library could be you know alameda county you know system there's a lot of places where you can take this idea of i'm bringing this kind of services into any community and having any organization support it and then the final number is a seven as to your point and that's a seven hundred quid credit score community so let me describe this for you wonderful book that was written called a tipping point right right another tipping point he says only takes five percent to make a difference in a community so based on that concept here we go if you've got a neighborhood a community it could be a physical community it could be an auxiliary it could be a fraternity or sorority could be a knitting club it doesn't matter could be a cohort of people who are interested in raising their credit scores from the middle five hundred to over seven checking places they have a tendency to disappear in a seven hundred credit score community wide because you're building your relationship with the with your banking community with the financial community and more important is that that above seven hundred allows you to borrow money for your home they can do it and we provide those skills so what is it it's a for twelve to twenty four month program we combine it with webinars face to face sessions like castling sessions that we show oed in here one of the one counseling sessions we bring special guest speakers that come in and talk about various subjects of it and we even create something called living circles where p p may have heard a little bit about that is very popular today where people support each other but at the same time they're building their credit score up it's a wonderful program but it's all part of our credit and money management program which is inside the hope center and this center we focus on providing a couple things and we got to close on this a little bit but we also focus on providing digital literacy we have a cyber cafe that's in the front hands over ten computers available to the community to use for free we do credit money management workshops we do first time home buying workshops we do small business workshops and the jewel of them is our small business workshop for adelle's called the entrepreneurial training program and that's a fourteen week program that starts with someone who is dreaming about starting a business to business plan now we also realize we can't do it all by ourselves with team up with other organizations who are brilliant only on the right who allow us to take allow our people to have an opportunity work with them so that way we're creating this pathway to success so i don't the vision because you treated us much differently treat children adults learn differently i believe in children but the point is that if someone knows if they can come in a place which gives them an absolute respect about who they are but ask actually works with think carefully to take them where they want to go and we do it hand in hand together we don't baby people we don't chase after them but we treat them with the greatness that exist and i and i really like that and i want to say to our viewing audience out there that before those individuals that are watching this show today how can they get additional information in regards to finding out where there's hope center maybe in their area or you where you are located at if you know they'd like to come down and actually meet the market president so to see you know is there something about being able to reach out and touch in that oakland we're inside a bank of the west there on one side we're on the other ok and we can be reached at five ten five three five six seven zero zero so that's the way you get all of us here ok but we also have an incredible site and it's called are located in there and gives a lot more information about the different divisions of the organization that's one way you can get the information online if you want to get the real deal information if you want to have an opportunity to be a profit center and learn more about it than i invite all across the nation across the world and the beauty of it is a you may be sitting right next to the c e o of the moroccan stock exchange having less data plan on it just to give you an example we've had people from nigeria from the emirates literally because we community but it's a broader thing too so we invite everyone if you're interested i suggest if i may to go to hope global forum dot org you can see the entire program you can register online if you choose to to attend to them we certainly have to have you back on the show and what i want to say to our viewing audience today is if you didn't take away at least one thing at least one thing from what our market president of operation hope tyrone posey share with you then i have