Lifting communities by raising credit scores

By Susan Rupe

John Hope Bryant told a story about two Americas – not divided by race or by political affiliation, but by credit scores.

Bryant is the founder and CEO of Operation HOPE, an organization whose mission is to advance economic opportunity by helping individuals reach their financial goals. Operation HOPE offers financial education, one-on-one coaching and courses on credit score improvement, as well as pathways toward homeownership and starting a business. He spoke at the Employee Benefit Retirement Institute-Milken Institute 2024 Retirement Symposium.

He said he partnered with Experian to map every ZIP code in the U.S. by credit score. The findings underscored his belief that increasing the credit scores of every neighborhood will lift entire communities – not just economically but in other ways. He used two neighborhoods in Chicago, Lincoln Park and Grant Park, as examples.

“In Lincoln Park, the average credit score is 730, but 15 minutes away, in Grant Park, the average credit score is 500. In Lincoln Park, the average life expectancy is 81 but in Grant Park, the average person lives to be 61. So you live almost 20 years longer with a higher credit score,” he said.

Communities with higher credit scores also have higher rates of home ownership, higher education rates and lower property crime rates than those with low credit scores, Bryant said.

Operation HOPE was founded in the wake of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles in 1992. Bryant contended there has never been a riot in a high-credit-score neighborhood.

“I can’t make you love your neighbor. I can’t solve our racial problems. But I can work with communities and individuals to help them raise their credit scores, and changing your credit score will change your life,” he said.

Bryant told his story of growing up in a predominantly Black community in Los Angeles. Although his family owned several businesses and some real estate, they lost everything through some bad financial decisions and the family struggled afterward.

“My mother told me there's a difference between being broke and being poor. Being broke is economic; being poor is a disabling frame of mind,” he said.

Bryant said he was inspired to become an entrepreneur from a Bank of America executive who visited his elementary school to talk to the students about financial literacy.

“We didn’t want him there and he didn’t want to be there,” Bryant recalled. “But except for a police detective, he was the only white man in a suit that I ever saw. So one day, I asked him, ‘What do you do for living? And how'd you get rich and do it legally?’ He said, ‘I'm a banker. I finance entrepreneurs.’ I told him I didn’t know what an entrepreneur is but it was legal and you’re financing it so I’m going to be one.”

Today, Operation HOPE works with employers such as Delta Airlines and Harley Davidson to provide financial coaching for their employees. They have supported legislation on the state level to provide financial literacy education for public school students.

Bryant believes that attaining financial stability for all communities is the key to a strong U.S. And he believes that achieving financial stability is crucial for the nation’s survival.

“There has never been a superpower that wasn’t an economic superpower at the same time,” he said. “We are an amazing country despite all our problems. There’s not a better place on the planet. Because America isn’t a country, it’s an idea. We can make it anything we want. Hope is so powerful. You need only a little bit of it to change the world.”

Susan Rupe is managing editor for InsuranceNewsNet. She formerly served as communications director for an insurance agents' association and was an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor. Contact her at [email protected]. Follow her on X @INNsusan.