John Bryant, CEO of Operations Hope

CEO of Operation Hope, Announces New Program to Support Financial Literacy for All

JOHN BRYANT

We have all heard the word financial literacy being thrown around, but how many people know what it means? Worldwide, only a third of adults understand financial concepts. In America, 4 in 7 Americans are financially illiterate. And more jarring is that only 24 percent of millennials understand essential financial topics.

So what is financial literacy? According to Experian.com, financial literacy is the confident understanding of concepts including saving, investing, and debt, leading to an overall sense of well-being and self-trust. In lay man’s terms, it is how well you handle your money.

And because of the lack of financial literacy plaguing the nation, CEO and of Operation Hope, John Bryant, launched Financial Literacy for All, a nationwide initiative seeking to entrench financial literacy into the American culture.

PICTURE SOURCE The Financial Literacy for

All initiative is a partnership between CEO John Bryant and major corporate leaders that include the CEOs of Walmart; Bob Chapek, Walt Disney Company; Brian Moynihan, Bank of America; Rosalind Brewer, Walgreens; Larry Fink, BlackRock; Ed Bastian, Delta Air Lines; Roger Goodell, Commissioner of NFL; Adam Silver, Commissioner of NBA; Sal Khan, Founder and CEO of Khan Academy and Tony Ressler, Executive Chair of Ares Management and Principal Owner of Atlanta Hawks.

The initiative will span over ten years, where John Bryant hopes that through a series of programs and awareness programs will “reshape, rethink, and reimagine the way we think about our relationship with money.”

Unlike other financial literacy programs with a target audience, the Financial Literacy for All initiative plans to work with a broader audience, disregarding their demographic.

“We will begin introducing American, primarily working adults and students from middle school to university, to the core competencies of financial education and reinforcing the foundational skills of budgeting, saving, and credit management,” John Bryant said in a press release in May.

According to John Bryant, this is just the beginning; he hopes to expand his partnership portfolio, build a coalition of ”like-minded individuals and organizations from every walk of life, social economic level, and political persuasion to help promote the cause of financial literacy for all.”

So why is this initiative important to John Bryant?

“There is evidence that this is a critical need. Financial literacy is a civil rights issue of the 21st century that is as important as voting,” said Bryant. “We are currently in the largest economic depression since we’ve seen during the depression in the 1920s. People don’t know where to turn. I want to make this a new civil rights movement for this generation. I’m building upon civil rights with what I call silver rights.”

Bryant especially feels there is a disconnect where Black and disenfranchised Americans lack resources and financial literacy and are preyed upon. Bryant referring to the racial discrimination that Black and Brown people face when applying for loans. Half of African

Americans have a credit score of less than 620. Because of that, they are locked out of free enterprises, according to Bryant—something that Bryant hopes to address through his initiative.

“With my new initiative, we are going into banks to coach up the community, putting financial coaches in the branches in the poor community,” says Bryant.

And to really help communities, especially Black communities, to make better investments in stocks and bonds, job creation, education, business ownership, generation wealth, and homeownership, Bryant has made the financial and coaching services free.

“We don’t have a business plan for our race. We have got reach our people. I’m building an economic infrastructure for Black America. We have to take change their mindset, then it changes the culture.”

According to Bryant, the initiative will make an impact if financial literacy is a conversation that is had even at the dinner table—something that he learned from watching his parents handle money. And though his father impacted his money habits, it is his mother that taught him about money. By the time he was ten, he had his own business, boosting his selfesteem, personal confidence, and belief in what to do.

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Eric Lawrence Frazier, MBA. President and Founder, The Power Is Now Media

Work Cited:

https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/whatis-financial-literacy-and-why-is-it-important/ https://www.theatlantavoice.com/articles/operationhope-ceo-announces-new-movement-to-supportfinancial-literacy-for-all/ https://www.businesswire.com/news/ home/20210520005594/en/Top-BusinessLeaders-Launch-Movement-to-Embed-FinancialLiteracy-Into-American-Culture https://johnhopebryant.com/2021/05/financialliteracy-saved-my-life-it-can-save-others-too.html