How John Hope Bryant Built a Non-Profit Powerhouse

In this episode, John Hope Bryant reminisces on some of the origin stories of building Operation Hope - taking it from an idea to the $75million+ non-profit organization it is today!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaks to the planning.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I go by the name of Charlamagne the God, and
guess what, I can't wait to see y'all at the
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(00:22):
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Speaker 1 (00:45):
Welcome the Money and Wealth with John O'Bryant, a production
of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio Yo Yo
Yo is John O'Brien and again, Money and Wealth is

(01:06):
the series and the topic today. It's something I've never
really talked about. It's something I've never unpacked, but I'm
going to unpack it with you today. It's how I
created a seventy five million dollar a year national nonprofit

(01:27):
organization that, in many people's minds is a bit of
a powerhouse for financial inclusion and financial literacy and economic empowerment.
You may hear the announcements and press releases and things
like that, but I'm going to unpack, and as I've
said I'm going to do with the entire series in

(01:50):
this podcast these podcast episodes, is to unpack and demystify
the how, the what, the who to less degree the why.
We sort of know why though I get in a
bit of that, but I'm going to get you into
the wheelhouse of what I did thirty two years ago

(02:15):
in founding Operational. But I've created sixty different entities and
I'm happy to unpack the other entities. If any of
those are of interest to you, just send me a
note on social media to me and my team and
let me know the ideas you have of what you'd
like me to talk about. I've talked about the Promise
Homes Company, before, which I substantially sold a few years ago.

(02:36):
I still own any interest in that. That's the company
that owned seven bought, you know, seven hundred homes and
from Atlanta through North Florida. I walked through that, but
I'm happy to go into detail there. There's my other ventures.
I won't go through them. But today I want to
unpack the nonprofit which most people know me through, which

(03:00):
is really my passion. I believe financial literacy it's the
civil rights issue of this generation. I believe, and I
say this respectfully and humbly. I believe this is what
doctor King would be doing if he was still alive today.
I believe this is a game changer for this generation.
Is as important as the right to vote. But none

(03:22):
of that is the reason that Operation Hope has become
this behemoth. Let me take you back to its founding.
But let me start by making something clear. I say
it several times in different interviews, but I'm going to

(03:43):
make it claim and make this clear. With regard to
my own enterprises, business is not personal. Whenever you make
an emotional decision, it's going to be a bad one.
So please know that with a nonprofit corporation, it is
a corporation. It's not a plaything. It's not a toy,

(04:04):
and you don't own it. Here's here's a wake up call.
I founded Operation Hope. I gave it its original money. I
birthed it, I created it incorporation documents. I'm the founder, chairman,
and chief executive officer. I took my money from my
for profit and gave it to lent it to my nonprofit.
Gave some of it to my nonprofit and lent some

(04:25):
of it to the nonprofit which I expected that money
to come back to me. Most of it was a gift,
an intended gift, but a gift. But I don't own
this nonprofit. It's actually Operation Hope is owned by the
American public because it's a five o' one C three
nonprofit corporation. Now it is a corporation, just like Netflix

(04:51):
is a corporation. It's a corporation, just like Tyler Perry
Studios is a corporation. It is a corporation just like
any other for profit entity. The difference is that when
you apply for a tax exempt status for that corporation

(05:15):
in order to not pay taxes on revenue and income
and all that stuff, transactions to be tax exempt. You
have to have a purpose that is for the public,
public purpose, and the shareholder stops being you the individual.

(05:36):
Please pay attention to this. This is very important. I
don't want you end up in prison. I don't want
anybody here listening to this to end up in bad
stayed with the federal government, particularly the irs. This is
so important to get this right. When you have a
for profit corporation and you're the shareholder and you take

(05:56):
the risk and you get an it does well and
it's profitable, depending on the shareholder agreements and the kind
of shares that you have, and whether you're the sole shareholder,
and so on and so forth. Theoretically that money is yours.
You take it out as you see fit to take
it out in the form of salary, take it out

(06:18):
in the form of a loan. You can invest it,
you know you can. You can sell the company, you
can sell your shares, you can dilute the shares, do
whatever you want. You are a shareholder in a for
profit enterprise. But when you run a five O one
C three, in my case five O one C three nonprofit,

(06:40):
it starts out as a normal corporation. Use an apply
to the internal revenue service or tax exempt status. And
if they grant that status, you become a different entity,
no different than I said. The institution of marriage existed
three thousand years before I start a lord and dowbed

(07:01):
it with spiritual dimensions. It existed as an agreement to
protect wealth, and then it became spiritually endowed. Of course,
we know the life of Jesus and so on and
so forth, and now it is a different thing, rightly so,
But it started out as a contract. Similarly, by the way,

(07:22):
what I just told you was literally true. I've talked
about that several times. How marriages, it started out as
a business agreement. If you think about the royal houses
in Europe, and you had two family members effectively marrying
each other, sort of disgusting, but anyway, two family members
marrying each other, they didn't even live any the same

(07:44):
castles with the same rooms sometimes where they were protecting
the assets of the family. That's why they that's why
one royal house would marry another royal house. Was it
back then for love? So in this case, you start
out as a for profit corporation they read generic corporate entity,
a sea corporates, corpor whatever, and you request TAXESIMP status

(08:10):
from the federal government. Now when you do that, and
it gives you this taxes simps, and there are different
types of tax exemption, so you research that yourself. By
the way, a church is another form of a tax
exempt organization, but let's stay focused. Mine is a five
oh one C three nonprofit organization the minute, And by
the way, if it's pending, if your TAXIXIP standing status

(08:32):
is pending, you can take that corporation and go to
somebody else who has an existing nonprofit and they can
host your nonprofit. I've done this for several entities, people
like trust. You got to be a trust of people
who bring you this. But I have hosted other nonprofits
who are trying to get their TAXESIP status, so tax
exempt status, so folks who want to donate to them
can send them money to Joe's feeding pantry through Operation Hope.

(08:58):
And we're a bit of the care taker where we're
carrying the money in trust and the folks making the
contribution still get their tax exempt status even though they
get their tax where they get their their the benefit
of their tax contribution, the charitable contribution of which they

(09:19):
then write off their taxes because they're sending the money
to Operation Hope, which is tax exempt, even though the
entity that they are trying to donate two is still
pending with the i R. S now back to the story.
Once you make something a tax exempt like that, you
no longer own it. You have traded a benefit, You've
traded your interests, your ownership of that entity for the

(09:43):
public good. And now you're talking on the public good
versus your own good, you and you. And as a
result of that, because the money is not folowing to you,
the interest is not folowing to you, you don't want
the taxes to be owed by you either. And the
government says, well, you're doing good work. We're going to
give you a We're going to give you a break,
a pass on any earnings you make when I got

(10:04):
to charge you with that. And on top of that,
we're going to give those who donate you money a benefit,
a TAXI ship status for their donation, their contribution. Why
am I telling you this? I have some rules at
Operation Hope. One of the rules, and I've had these
rules for thirty two years. I can benefit my nonprofit,

(10:26):
but my nonprofit cannot be seen is benefiting me now?
I didn't say my nonprofit couldn't benefit me. I went
further and said, my nonprofit cannot be seen perceived as
benefiting me. Right. I've also said, don't do anything you
don't want to see you on the front page of

(10:46):
the New York Times in five years. Don't put me
in a limousine by accident, in charge of the Operation Hope.
Don't put me in some luxury hotel suite in charge
it to Operation Hope. Don't buy me a first class
plane ticket with rack rate in charge of the Operation Hope.

(11:06):
So we have policies for travel. Right. I used to
travel for years and years and years. I traveled cheap, cheap,
chief coach. Right. I remember one ticket trip I took
early and they found against sherut of Operation Hope. Rachel
my chief of staff now for thirty plus years. She's
an amazing human being. She was trying to save some money,

(11:27):
so she put me this on when we lived in La.
I lived in La She put me on this plane
that was going someplace in the US, but for some reason,
it detoured to the South America, went through Mexico on
his way. It was a cheap, very cheap ticket, and
it was a chicken underneath my seat in my coach seat.
My feet were already my knees were already at my chest,

(11:50):
but there was a chicken book book book underneath the seat,
and boy, I let Rachel have it. But she's like, hey, you'
to only to find the best, the best, the cheapest ticket,
and I didn't. They'll be bad at me because I
did my job. We've had so much fun and so
many fans and familius memories over these uh these thirty
two two years, and we don't have time. I'm now,

(12:12):
it's not our accounting this. We won't have time to
get through all this on this one podcast. But I
hope you like this. I hope this is enjoy enjoyable.
I'll try to get some lefts through these key lessons
for you of dos and don't and then maybe you
have to come back and do part two. You'll tell
me whether you're too bored with part one for me
to do part two. But I'm happy to go deeper
into this. So never do anything you don't want to

(12:33):
see you on the front page of the New York
Times in five years. So if so, as Rod McGrew,
my dear friend would say, think three times in that once.
If you think about something and it doesn't sound right
to you, and you got to think about it again,
think about it a third time, you probably shouldn't do it.
It's probably going to end up badly if something is
to your benefit. I have an expense report, not an

(12:56):
expense account. There's a difference. I don't carry the corporation's
credit card. I use my credit card and I'm reimbursed
by the company for the company's expenses. Is my nonprofit,
I don't have an expense account. An expense account means
that you have an account with the corporation. It allocates

(13:19):
certain monies to you for whatever, and you just have
to account for the monies that are being allocated to you.
But when it's a five O one C three charitable nonprofit,
you're using the public's money and you cannot use that
money like it's your own, because well it's not your own,
right and you can go to jail. Have drive your attention. Now,

(13:43):
you can go to the popo, you can go to prison,
and you can go to jail. Which one's worse. Now
go to jail, yeah, jail. Then you can go to prison.
If you are seeing it's a felony to defraud the
public funds to a charitable five oh one C three nonprofit.

(14:04):
There have been many nonprofit founders who have gone to
jail because they thought that the money they were using,
they treated it as if it's there all. So I'm
paranoid about certain things. These are some frameworks that you have.
I know, I'm a black man in America. So I've
got to be twice as twice as intelligence, twice as honest,

(14:26):
twice as smartket twice as early staid, twice as late work,
twice as hard, have twice as much integrity. And that's fine.
Haters make me better, but no one's harder on me
than I am. So I just make sure I take
care of the business. So I run this nonprofit like
a for profit. Did you hear me? Even though it's

(14:47):
not my for profit. We have have a ratio at
Operation Hope. That's uh that well, it's the expense ratio.
So I'm getting to But on Wall Street, you a

(15:10):
for profit company is judged through bond ratings, so you
have a triple A bond ratings or you know, double
A bond rating. But there are companies that rate the
quality of your debt, the quality of your you know,
the quality of your company. And it's a public facing rating.
In the nonprofit world, you have a couple entities that

(15:33):
do the similar a similar thing. This one that we
use is called Charity Navigator, and their top rating is
a four star and we've had a four star Charity
Navigator rating for over a dozen years now, it's over
ten years now, I think it's eleven. And that means
in short that in order to hit that rating at

(15:55):
there's several benchmarks, but one of them is that basically
about eighty eight eight cents of every dollar that comes
into Operation Hope. So the dollar comes into Operation Hope,
and eighty eight cents goes to the mission, do you
hear me? So it's not shopping, it's not partying, it's
not not launching, restauranting. You know, it's not. No, it

(16:17):
is the eighty eight cents of every dollar goes to
in our case, coaching, counseling, supporting the mission, and twelve
cents of that dollar goes for useless things like me
and to a lessergree, my senior management team. So that's
called a very efficient nonprofit. You don't want to have
a nonprofit that has a bad efficiency rating. You don't

(16:39):
want to have a nonprofit where sixty or eight cents
of every dollar is being used for administration, for salaries,
for fluff, and twenty twenty five percent is actually going
to the mission. It should sound sort of obvious, but
people don't think about that for some reason, even a
nonprofit where fifty cents on the dollar is going to
the mission, since on the dollars going to somebody's pocket

(17:02):
or the expenstory administrative expenses is actually not a good thing.
So you should want to aim for, you know, somewhere
above seventy cents of every dollar. I believe should be
more like eighty five cents plus of every dollar it
goes to the mission. As a result of us having
eighty seven eighty eight cents of every dollar coming in

(17:22):
going to the mission consistently, and we have auditive financials
and transparent books and records like you can go to
the internet and find out what my senior team and
I guess me is compensated for at the nonprofit. It's
we're a public entity. You can pull our tax documents
and go through it, and people have right. I've had people,

(17:43):
you know, call the organization operation Hope and write us
letters and all this kind of stuff. Years and years ago,
when people didn't like me talking about check cashers or
payday loan lenders or rent to own stores. I would
have people trying to shut me up, and so they
would send letters. They'd go through our financials and send letters.
Luckily it was just I mean, I'm paranoid about things
like books and records. That's how people get you. So

(18:05):
you're not gonna catch me slipping. They thought they did,
and they were wrong, and our books were just tight.
They made certain assertions which I knew weren't right. So
we have audited financials. You can have, by the way,
a bookkeeper do your financials. You can have a tax
pro do your financials. Those are not bulletproofnially. Somebody doing

(18:25):
your books and records. Somebody has to certify that these
books and records are actually accurate and use We use
an audit firm in addition to our accounting firm to
certify that our company is doing what we're saying it
is that we are doing, and that we're running it
in a proper way. And so I have a chief

(18:47):
financial officer. I have a chief accountant. I have an
accounting team, I've got audit firm, I've got bookkeepers, I've
got project managers. We are parent weight about managing the
money correctly. Let's go back now to so Operation UP

(19:09):
today is seventy five seventy seventy five million dollars. It
fluctuates sixty five million, seventy five million, but it's a
lot of money. And that's every year, and it's the
budget was I mean, I think actually hit around two thousand,
when the pandemic hit, we were about twenty twenty five million,
so you can see the budget is double tripled. Since then,

(19:31):
we have invested through Operation four point five billion dollars
in the underserved neighborhoods for homeowners, small business owners, entrepreneurs,
those trying to you know, lift their lives up. And
that seventy five million dollar budget facilitates us doing coaching
and counseling in bank branches. Were the only nonprofit allowed

(19:53):
to operate side of a bank branch in US history.
How did we do that? It wasn't a wish, hope
and a prayer. It wasn't a good feeling. It was
me going to the federal banking regulators and writing a
letter to all the federal banking regulators. It's called the
f fie CS. Not important view to know what that means,
but it's basically all the regulatory agencies into one one
group FDIC, Federal Reserve Comport of the Currency CFPB, Consumer

(20:15):
Financial Protection Bureau, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And
writing them a letter made a case for why Operation
Hope is a final one C three nonprofit should be
allowed to operate inside of a bank branch so that
I can get the bank branch to do for a
bank what it couldn't do for itself, which is the
coaching council it's customers or perspective customers. The bank can't

(20:39):
do that because they're afraid to be sued, they might
fall if they might run into a law or something
that they are running a foul of by trying to
counsel somebody. So we are in the bank where we're
not employed by the bank, employed by me. It gives
me the advantage over a bank employee. And so we
can work with colt that client to get their credit

(21:00):
score up fifty four points in six months thirty six
to forty to fifty four points, the debt down as
much as thirty eight hundred dollars, their savings up about
twelve hundred dollars, so that the bank for somebody making
forty eight fifty thousand dollars a year, the bank and
then say yes, So getting the bank out of the
no business and to the yes business or the bank
and say yes and give you prime credit. Why is

(21:22):
that important? That's why we have three hundred physical locations
for Operation Hope and twelve hundred satellite locations for a
total of fifteen hundred Operation Hope locations in fifty and
forty two states. Sorry, And that's why we're a sustainable
business model and continuing to grow because we have a
product that solves a problem. What capitalism is is problem solving.

(21:45):
Entrepreneurship is well, capitalism is not necessarily problem solving. Capitalism
is making a profit, putting in your pocket. It's more
complicated than that, but I simplified it. But entrepreneurship is
problem solving. A business model is problem solving for a
profit for a return on that investment. So I found

(22:07):
a problem in banking, and this is one example that
I wanted to solve and that's turned into a sustainable
business model. I had a problem with youth financial literacy
I wanted to solve. I'm still solving that from a
business model of even though we've taught millions of kids
financial literacy that is not that model is not as refined.

(22:31):
That's called Hope and Side for kids as my Hope
and Side for adults model is. So there's a hopen
side disaster model that's slightly refined. We are the only
organization that is approved by the federal government to do
it well. We pioneered actually emergency financial Disaster Preparedness, Response
and Recovery. So a for the long explanation, but we're

(22:52):
basically the economic red Cross for the country. And we
did that after I created that after ninety eleven, because
I had employees and Bankers Trust building loss from well
I think it's called Bankers Trust. It was across from
today Towers at ninety eleven. When the towers came down,
they ran it, they fell into the building where my
employees were at my employees running out the building, and
it dawned on me it wasn't just rich people and

(23:14):
these buildings who were you know, lives were impacted and
some people lost their lives. It was the janitors, the
office workers, the you know, the parking valets, and when
they lost their life and the wife is grieving, she's
also having to pay rent or mortgage that same week

(23:34):
or that same month. And now she doesn't know where
the bank account is because they didn't talk about that.
She doesn't he didn't have any reserves.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
So we had to work with FEMA on their behalf
and American Red Cross. And so after the cameras leave
the disaster for a few days, the real disaster, the
secondary disaster, begins after the loss of life, which is
I have a car loan and no car anymore. I
have a home, no home anymore. I'm a small business loan,
no small business anymore. I've got bills and no jobs.

(24:04):
So we created a program Rainbows after Storms. Can I
have a rainbow with our storm? First, we created a program,
got it blessed by the federal government. It's actually a
funny story around this, and became the nation's partner for
FEMA and Homeland Security and the American Red Cross for
emergency disaster prepared preparedness, response and recovery. And we're actually

(24:27):
responding no to the Los Angeles fires. God bless those
who are affected by that. So here's the funny story.
I was. This was the George Bush administration, President Bush
after nine eleven. So I came up with this idea
and I went to go see the president's team and
they liked my idea, and before they could let me

(24:50):
proceed with it, I had to go talk to the
I think it was a general counsel, but it was
bracing the president's lawyer in the White House, and he
was like, well, this sounds like a great idea, but
we can't have any liability here. You need to go
back and come back, and you know, go work out
the liability. I know you're working with the insurance companies
and some loan executives from insurance companies back there. Believe
it a state farm, remember, and go work it out

(25:11):
with them and come back and prove that this is
not a risk. I didn't know what the guy was
talking about, really, but I faked it well. So I
went back to I mean, how do you create a
business plan for something that's never happened, never existed before.
I created this out a whole cloth. It was an idea,
So I go back. I flew back to La and

(25:34):
I sat down with my team and I said to Rachel,
my chief of staff, when this, I don't know what
I'm asking for, but I'm telling you, when I go
back to Washington next week, I need a thump. Well
what does that mean? That means that when somebody looks
through this risk management binder, we're going to prove that
we're safe and trustworthy to do this emergency disaster work,

(25:57):
coaching work. That when the law here at the White
House and his team flips through, you know, his binder,
it thumps on their desk and then it overwhelms them.
So I get this binder. I fly back to to DC.
I go to the Attorney's office the White House, and
I drop it out on his desk. He looks up

(26:19):
at me, looks down at that, looks up at me,
grabs it to there with one hand, right, looks looks
at a couple of pages. Said yeah, this looks about right.
He asked me a couple of questions. You signed off
on it, and that was it, And I signed agreement
with Tom Bridge, with the first Secretary and history of
Homeland Security that was George Bush administration. And this little

(26:42):
black boyfriend complin that created the nation's first emergency financial
disaster Prepared as Response and Recovery Agency. That's back up.
Now I'm taking you. I've really taken you from Operation
Hope backwards. I'm going backwards now. I want to start
at the beginning. But this works too. I'm gonna tell
you another story. This was now President Bush, Bush the father,

(27:06):
So that was Bush the son. I believe this was
not Reagan. I believe this was George Bush the father.
He's president and secretary of HUD. Was Jack Kemp, football
star and a friend. So I had somehow maneuvered myself
through a small business association to sit in the front row.

(27:29):
This is actually not an Operation Hope story per se,
but it's still I'm still going to tell you because
it's it's instructive. And I'm sitting in the front row
for the National Federation of NFIB National Federation of Independent
Business And I'm sitting in the front row, and how
do I get there. I'm the only black guy who's
a member of NFIB. I always keep showing up where
nobody's at. So I would go to the National founder

(27:50):
Federation of Independent Business NFIB. I think it's what it's
called and I was the only chocolate drop in the room,
trying to do business, trying to build a business. Anyway,
So the President Bush is gonna is doing this thing
and he and he's speaking and he's and they're inviting
some folks to come there, and they're just completely all white.
They're like, well, can you come, John? Sure, So he

(28:12):
sent me in the front row and the President notices
me they would invited in to the White House. Now
the President's gonna speak again, and they have they want
some background information on me. So I get to the
White House and they were gets impressed with the work
I was doing in community, uh, which included Operation Hope.
I just started Operation Up. I believe I'm trying to

(28:34):
think of the years if this might have this amount
of slightly predated Operation Hopes. I think Joe started when
I started an earners when when when Clinton had come
in office. So anyway, he calls my name, he says,
I commend John Bryant for his work in community and
so on and so forth. And so I was so
excited to get up and the President walks by me
and I shake his hand and I said, you know,

(28:55):
can I have your business card to the President of
the United States, and he just points up right live
right there. Well, Jack Kemp and other kind of members
saw me talking to the president, and so I went
to say hello to the secretary Jack Kemp who saw
me talking to the president, And I said, can I
come see you? He's a secretary hud He says, sure.
I fly back to LA. We call Jack Kimp's office

(29:15):
to confirm the appointment. We only asked for fifteen minutes.
Who's going to ever turn you down for fifteen minutes.
I fly back from LA to d C. From my
fifteen minute meeting, I'm in Jack Kim's office and he says, a, ha,
what are you doing in Washington, d C? See Secretary?
Oh that's really great. He's putting his football, throwing his football,
you know in the areas. You got a chief of

(29:35):
staff there with him. Oh that's really great. What else
you're doing here in DC? I'm gonna see I'm here
to see umiss secretary. Oh that's again, that's really great. No,
what other meetings do you have in d C? No,
I just came all this way to see you, miss Secretary.
I came to saw to see the president. He said
nice things about my work in community, which I appreciate it.
And I really wanted to meet you because I want
to do some business with HUD Housing and Urban Development Department.

(29:58):
So now he feels guilty because it only giving me
fifty ten minutes. So what did he do? Extended the
meeting to an hour and then he said, look, follow me,
so he goes down. So he's gonna swear in. Raoul
Carroll got rested. Soul as the FAHA Commissioner of Federal
Housing Authority. First black man I believe to be sworn

(30:20):
in as No, that was another guy who is who
is FAHA commissioner. Raoul was the president of Jenny May.
There's Fanny May, and there's Jenny May. Near mind all
the details here, just he was a bad brother, right,
and Ral Carroll's his name, and Raoul had his family there.
And so Jack Kemp says in the middle of the

(30:41):
swear again ceremony form Roald Carroll because I was tagging
along with him, he says, Oh, and by the way,
my friend is here from LA meet John Bryant. Well,
I just met the dude, right, but he called me
his friend. Ral Carroll didn't know anything different any better.
So then I said to Raul Carroll, congratulations, Can I
come see you when you get settled? Sure? So I
fly back to LA like another plane taket. I fly
back to Washington, d C. I go sit down with

(31:03):
Raul Carroll. Now Ral Carroll doesn't know me from hill
of Beans, but he knows that I was introduced by
the Secretary of Housing Urban Development, which is his boss,
as his buddy, and Washington's about proximity to power, so
he know, and I'm the only brother around, so he
knows to be nice to me. So I asked for
a business deal, and again it's not important. I gonna

(31:25):
get back to operation Hope. The longest short of it is,
I got the business deal. I even got the then
g E Capitol g GE servicing, the finance in service.
The business deal that I got Ral Carroll and gmmy
may just on the power. Luckily, the deal that I
go through, I would have lost a lot of money
right right at the end of that deal going through,

(31:47):
the President lost his presidency. Bush lost re election. I
believe it was, I'm pretty sure to Bill Clinton. So
they the deal was just unraveled at the last minute,
thank god. But I had made it all that way
with my mouth and integrity, not you know, I didn't lie.
Everybody else was fudging the truth, not me. I just

(32:09):
follow the money and you know, and didn't give up.
That's operational story. I'd followed the money. I made it
about the green, not black or white or red of blue.
We were founded in the bipartisan way, by the way
George so I went. Tom Bradley was mayor of Atlanta.
It was the democratic mayor of Atlanta, the first black

(32:30):
man to run a city like the city of la
I said the Mayor of Atlanta, my bad. Tom Bradley
was the mayor of Los Angeles for twenty years and
had no black men to ever run to see like
that a major economy before. And I became a bit
of a mentee to Tom Bradley through friends like Will

(32:51):
Marshall and Bill Raphael, others who were supportive of me
as a young man trying to make it. I used
to carry a little computer. Still to this day, it's
gonna I pad it. Back then I had a big
compact computer, and I had a radio shack computer. He
sings with that, plus the brick that had on my
shoulder called a mobile phone back then would break somebody's back.
How am my good shape today? I carry all that

(33:11):
stuff all the time to every business meeting. And oh,
it's so many stories. I can tell you all these stories.
There's no time. But anyway, Tom Bradley took to me,
and when the riots happened, he created Rebuild in LA.
I became the youngest board member of Rebuilt Los Angeles
for pet yearboroff, and I asked Tom Bradley for some

(33:31):
startup money money for Operation Hope. Tom Bradley, this is
why I want you to be bipartisan. Follow the money right.
Tom Bradley, a Democratic mayor, reached out to outgoing President
George W. Bush. I'm not sure if it was obviously
that point he wasn't going to be reelected, but he
reached out. I think it was to George W. Bush,
the President of United States, a Republican, and asked him

(33:54):
for some money for this young man. He was impressed
by after the Ryny King riots and was going to
do some stuff to help economically. Tom Bradley's administration says,
we don't have any money. We're on our way out
the door, but we there's this little grant the seven
J grant that sixty one thousand dollars available. I think
I had a budget of six hundred thousand dollars or something.
We have sixty one thousand dollars available at the Small

(34:15):
Business Administrative Tration US Small Business Administration. Do you want that?
I just said yes. Always say yes. It always stuns
me when somebody has a business or something and they
don't want to take like the American Express card because
the fees are too high. Wait a minute, are you
arguing with me about what percentage of the profit you're
going to get from what my purchase I want to
make you? Or are you going to let the things
sit on the shelf and not sell it to anybody

(34:37):
so versus making If you're selling it for ten bucks
and there's you know, and you're making I'm making this
up and making a you want to make a dollar
profit off of ten bucks or two dollars profit off
of ten bucks? No, you're going to make a dollar
twenty five profit or dollars seventy five profits because the
fee is increased because it's AMEX. Look, just sell the thing,
get it off your shelf and buy something else. Don't

(34:58):
let the perfect become the death of the When somebody
would say something to me as an entrepreneur, the answer
was always yes, I work out the details later. Never
let the perfect become the death of the goods. So
when they offered me sixty one thousand dollars, it was
ten percent of what I was looking for, but I
said yes. I took that sixty one thousand dollars budget
and money and put it to work and sent out
a press release let everybody know that we got this

(35:21):
grant we were legitimate from the federal government. Then I
use that money to raise to get private banks and
corporations in Southage, Roila or in LA who wanted to help,
who were not giving money to rebuild LA, which was
a big baller in town to give me to match
me some money for me. It was this company called

(35:46):
Banker's Trust. I'd asked her six hundred thousand dollars from
Banker's Trust still try to meet my budget, and they
had approved it. And I had a city councilman on
my board. I won't name his name because he's still
in the mix right there. I want to embarrass him,
but you would know who he was. He was on
my boarding directors. And when I said I'm going to
rebuild someone eradicating poverty in the world or something like that,

(36:08):
eradicating poverty in my lifetime, he wrote, eradicating poverty in
the ex district. I'm not going to tell you which district. Now,
I'll tell you it's the eighth district that missed his stories.
Can figure this out. Eradicating poverty in the eighth district
is what he wrote. He crossed my letterhead out. I
crossed that out and said, eradicating poverty in the world.
I was mission authistic, and he resigned for my board. Now,

(36:32):
mind you, this is south central LA. The rise happened
in South central I need incredibility. When he resigned from
the board, that resignation letter somehow made it into the
offices of banker's trusts that had my grand application. Do
you know they turned they put that into committee, which
means you'll never see it again. I mean, you'll never
get that money. That councilman or his staff sent that

(36:56):
letter because he was upset with me that I wouldn't
just cowtout him and do what he said. And he
sent that letter to the board that making the committee
the decision about this money with Banker's Trust, and Banker's
Trust just said that I met with him and they
were like, well, we're going to consider this when we
put in the committee and evaluated the committee is a

(37:16):
nice way of saying, you're not getting this money until
like the end of the world. And I never got
that money, and they thought I was going to fold
up and go away, and I just doubled down again.
An entrepreneur works eighteen hours day to keep from getting
a job and just becauld be an entrepreneur of a
non profitganization. It doesn't matter. I take no for vitamins. Right.
First they able to ignore you, then they criticize you,

(37:38):
then they try to copy you, and then in time,
if you keep going, then you went. I had a
vision at a mission. I was not going to be
controlled by anybody. Now this is really important because if
I had allowed that city council person to control my
agenda so that I could get some city funds and whatever, whatever, whatever,
I would still be the susage or LA only a nonprofit,

(37:59):
you know, wrapped up in local stuff, and which is
all good. It's important. We need organizations that are just
focused on local We do that just wasn't my mission.
I already had a global vision. I was just starting
out inspired by the potential I saw in my community.
After the ride at King Riots, he didn't like that.

(38:21):
He didn't like that they couldn't control me. That happened
several times with other elected officials and I to this day,
Operation Hope only has about fifteen percent of federal or
public funds and our budget. Most of our bunds money
is private and that has really allowed me maximum flexibility.
Is much harder to raise private money. But once I
got a business plan down and a reputation for raising private,

(38:43):
private money and looking after it well, people raised send
me millions of dollars today and that you know, they
know I'm not going to abuse it with our financials
also of course every year, but they know I'm not
going to abuse it. So they wired money to wherever
we tell them and know that where to treat it right.
And it's done informally. People wire me millions of dollars
to Operation Hope, and it's never a big deal because

(39:05):
they just know that we're going to treat it right.
And today when a lot of nonprofits are having problems
because they're maybe they can't get money out of the
federal government or whatever. I don't have that problem because
I don't have a lot of money locked up in
the federal government. But it's just harder to get my
kind of money because well, you got to create a
legitimate business plan. So again, there's so many stories and

(39:28):
I'm just jumping around. I apologize, but it was really
important for me to give you some lessons about how
to run a proper corporation. And there's some examples of
what happens when you don't do that right. You go
to jail, or you or you go out of business.
So we started out in south central LA. Initially it
was about financial literacy for children in public schools. I

(39:52):
was doing that essentially for free with volunteers at a
big bank I won't name the bank, you know who
it is, who I just and their financial literacy program.
They then decided I was going to become their captured
financial literacy organization. I'd run their program with mine. And
they thought that because they were the big, bad whatever bank,
that I would just say yes, and I said, no,

(40:13):
we're not doing that. We're honored to create a program
for you. I hope it helps you I'm off and running.
And they said, well, we're not going to give you
any money, and I said, fine, I'll go get some
money from somebody else. There are eight being people in
the world. You don't like somebody saying to you, just
go talk to somebody else again. This bank tried to
do the same thing that this elected official did. And
it'd be real clear. The bank you want to if

(40:34):
you want to call the bank the white bank, Okay,
you can do that for this conversation. That makes you
feel better. But the elected official who tried to jam
me up twice, two different elect officials three Actually we're black, right,
So pimping is everywhere, right, if people try to take
advantage of you or of every power, of every stripe.
So you really there's I call it the bum factor.

(40:54):
Twenty percent of people in your family are bums. Twenty
percent of people who are Republicans are bumps. Percent of
people with Democrats are bumps. Twenty percent of Latinos, whites,
blacks of bumps, twenty percent of I mean, it's just
a bum factor. It's everywhere. So you should not generalize anybody.
Take people as they come and give them a bit
of the doubt. But when they try to trip you

(41:15):
up and tell you some you know, some wolf tickets,
just say no, because you're going to be the one
call with your hand and cookie jar later and you're
going to be the one that's going to be in trouble.
So I always think long term. I step over mess
and not ended. I'm never thinking about the transaction, always
thinking about houses going to look again, five years out,

(41:36):
looking backwards. So we started operating again locally, talking about
financial literacy. I didn't have a business plan for that.
We did small business stuff. I had a small business
plan from the SBA. Just tell you about that money.
I had a line of credit from Cedars Bank, which
changed his name twenty eight times bank. William Hannah was
my banker. I remember we got a line of credit SPA.

(42:02):
It was a MAP program mobile assistance program. I created
this van that we'd go around doing mobile technical assistance
for small business in Los Angeles, and I got the
SBA to fund that. That was another grant got in
the fund that and we'd go around and do mobile
technical systems for small businesses. And that program was going
pretty well until it wasn't. But that lasts for two

(42:25):
or three years. And I got a bank to give
me a line of credit. I think it was twenty
five thousand dollars. In fact that that's exactly what it was.
To finance it was. What happened is you put a grant,
you get a grant from the federal government. They don't
just give you money. You got to do a request
for a draw against the grant. First of all, you
got to match the grant private money. It's a whole
nother story. And then you got to submit to the

(42:47):
federal government to be reimbursed for the cost of what
you're spending on this program now in accords with the
budget that you gave them. I didn't have the money
to advance and float while the federal government wait took
its time to pay me back. So I went to bank,
to Cedars Bank and as h for a lot of credit.
William Hannah, the CEO with right to the top the
community Bank, told on my vision, he believed in me.

(43:10):
Gave me twenty five thousand dollars a lot of credit
on my word, secured by this SBA grant. Now the
federal government shuts down and they weren't writing checks to anybody,
and they'd shut down for months, and I went to
William Hanna. I said, look, I need one hundred thousand dollars.
I think it's one hundred thousand dollars. I need a
one hundred thousand dollars line of credit. I don't have

(43:31):
any collateral, can't I can't give you any but my
word right, I'll pay you back. But if I don't
get this, I'm out of business. And William Hannah told
me later he went to his chief financial officer. I
can remember the lady's name, but I won't say it.
She's still in banking, I think, and I just want
to embarrass her. But she told William Hannah, don't make

(43:54):
this loan to John. You'll never get your money back.
I know because he told me, and he overruled her,
and he gave me this loan for one hundred thousand dollars.
And when I found out that she had the chief
financial officer, he recommended chief credit officer. He recommended chief
credit officer makes credit decisions at the bank, recommended that
I should not get that loan. That wasn't It wasn't

(44:14):
directly racism. She was a minority herself. Frankly, she just
didn't believe in me. I was a young kid, and
you know what, you know everything she knew, thought she
knew about a young kid, a young black kid. Was
looked like. I had credit risk all over it. She
just wrote loaning money to rich people. I don't blame her,
and I don't and I don't judge her. But I
was gonna pay that money back and prove her wrong.

(44:37):
So I hustled and we paid that money back, every dollar,
every dime. And I made sure I walked past her
office when I had the payoff slip and put it
and made sure she saw it as I put it
under her desk and put it on William Hannah's desk ultimately,
and took his hand and said thank you, and we're
friends to this day. William Hannah changed my life. And

(45:00):
I started out with twenty five thousand dollars lines of credit,
and now I have lines of credit in the millions
unsecured on my name. Okay, Now there's all these little
tests that you've got to go through. I remember Mary Ayrson,
who still works with me to this day. She always
gets mad at me. I don't know the exact year
that how many years she'd been with me, twenty eight years. Whatever.
Lance Trigg has been me for about thirty years. Rachel's

(45:21):
been feed for thirty one, thirty two years. Janay Roscoe
has been me for twenty years. And all these people,
these legacy leaders who've been with me. So Mary was.
Mary comes in and she's she's been you know, she
a little white girl from She won't mind me saying
that because we actually call her white chocolate because she's
been to South Africa. Everybody more times, everybody had opera

(45:42):
so other than me. As we opened the offices in
South Africa, she ran them all. But anyway, Mary, A
lot of great stories of Mary. First one when she
came she came in. She was from New York City
and she wanted to work for me. And I said,
I don't have any money and what do you and
what are you going to do in Southenterola? I mean,
are you okay? Like are you safe? She's like, I
just we're talking about I just built thirty eight homes

(46:05):
in Watts with Habitat for Humanity. I'm like, are you
smoking something? You can't even walk through Wats. Well she
was right, she did go to Wats and built thirty
eight homes to habitat for humanity. Once I realized that
she had done that, I hired her immediately, and I
gave Mary every job title I had, because I you know,
if you could walk and che comes at operation, if
you walk past my desk, I to hand you a task, right,

(46:26):
competency was not important. So Mary had a chief financial
officer job. She had every title. So this was the
development officer. And this is how bad we were. Back
at the ind of the day, Mary, we gave we
had this grant I think it was ninety thousand dollars
or something from the City of Los Angeles, and the

(46:46):
deal was you took draws against the grant and let's
say the work costs sixty thousand dollars and you had
a ninety thousand dollars grant, so you actually had a
thirty thousand dollars profit that you can pay your staff
and your bills with. Well. Mary being so alstruous, I said, well, Mary,
we payrolls. Do like, where's the money? Like we did
the work. She says, oh, no, John, we were so efficient.

(47:06):
I just gave the rest of the money back to
the federal government, I mean to the City of Los Angeles.
What are you out of your day online? Right? We
need that money for payroll. I took Mary out of
that job immediately. Right. Let me tell you this other
Mary story. But hold on. I used to have to
write checks out of my check book. First of all,
I used to crack certificates of deposits CDs. You don't

(47:27):
even know what those are, but certificates of deposits basically
a fancy name for a savings account from my own business.
I would break these twenty five fifty CDs to pay
Operation Hopes bills because Operation Shop was broke. And I
would write a check on a Friday for payroll and
give the check to Rachel and I said, look at
the donations. Don't come in by Monday. Payroll's due was

(47:49):
actually payroll was Friday night. The checks you know need
to clear. I said, you know, if you need to
deposit my check, here it is, and I'd go off
about my business for my weekend. I had to complete
faith in Operation Hope. I probably wrote ten checks over
time to Rachel for for for a payroll. She never
had to cast one of them, but she always knew
I was there if she needed it. And the staff
knowing that I could do that, I would do that

(48:11):
meant the staff would stay up late, coming early, stay
up lay work weekends and would never complain. Okay, here's
another Mary Airsome story. Okay, I'm not am I telling
you am I this is entertaining, But am I helping
you to run to run a nonprofit? To build it?
I mean, we've been doing we were doing so much
with so little so long. We can almost do anything

(48:31):
with nothing. I got to break this up into in
the chapters and stories. I'm only get I've covered the
last few years in the first couple of years, so
you just have to have hoots, but and courage. We
were building a Hope inside location back then it's called
a Hope Banking Center in south central LA. Oh, so
many stories. I need to stop. We were building, uh

(48:54):
this Hope center and I wanted to put a digital
cyber cafe in. This is about fundraising now, and of
course I didn't have any money as usual, and I
thought Vice President Al Gore then the Vice president, he
loves technology. I need to get his attention, get his
attention about this, He'll fund it. So I would go

(49:14):
to run around the country wherever the Vice President was
and try to get his attention unsuccessful. And you can't
just run up in the Vice President's secret services to
shoots you. But I, you know, get close to Shake's hand.
But I couldn't have a conversation. Finally I was able
to get to go to a Christmas party at the
Vice President's residence. I enagled an invitation, and I gave

(49:35):
him my best ninety second spiel. Don't waste somebody's time
talking to them for five or ten and twenty minutes.
If you can't, as my friend Hugh Price has said,
he was former president of the National Urban League, if
you can't say something simply and quickly and crisply, as
if you're old slightly seen. Now Auntie can understand it,
it's not clear in your own head. I remember that

(49:56):
quote precisely. So I had my elevator pitched down, and
I told the Vice President of the United States about
my vision of having an inner city cyber cafe. Because
people in the inner city did not have access to
the internet. We had a banking center set up, which
is a whole another story. Because this racist banker who
used to be CEO of Hawthorne Savings had to give

(50:19):
me money because he was not compliant with the Community
Reinvestment acting. He had had to give money to somebody.
And my friend Tim Christman, who was chairman of that bank,
who was not racist, was a good guy. He knew
the CEO was racist, but we were trying to get
money out of him. He said, told me what to
say and how to say it. I went in, gave
this guy my spill. He said everything he could to
offend me. That didn't work. I didn't respond to it.

(50:40):
At the end of the meeting, I said, this is
the guy's I'd give me anything. And then he said,
I'm going to give you a million dollars to build
this banking center. So that built the banking center, even
though the guy was racist. Yes, that story is completely true.
Hawthley Savings, thank god, was acquired by somebody else, so
I'm to worry about them being upset with this. They're
gone away. But thank you Tim Christmin for giving me

(51:02):
the support I needed. He also became chairman of Operation
Home and Now because there's a banking center, but I
want to build a cyber cafe next to it, so
I go and sell this idea to the vice president.
I pitched him. He says, yes, this is a great idea.

(51:25):
So I then went to Washington, d C. For the
Vice President's residence. The next day met with the US
Economic Developm Administration and say, your vice President of the
United States wants to support coming. He will. He's got
to cut the ribbon for the Inner City cyber Cafe
on this day. It was like six weeks eight weeks later.
But the problem is I need to build it. It's
going to cost me six hundred thousand dollars. I don't
have the money. Will you give me the money for

(51:47):
your vice president? So they said, we can't give you
the home out, but we'll give you three hundred thousand
dollars grant. You got to raise the rest the matching grant.
No problem. I then took that three hundred thousand dollars commitment.
I went and they said, well look, I said, do
you guys know anybody who funds technology, any computers and
all this kind of stuff. He said, well, this is
a guy named Steve Ryan. He's got a lot of
clients there in technology. So I called this guy Steve

(52:07):
Ryan and told him my spiel. He says, where are you?
I said, I'm in DC. I think he said he
was in New York and he was there with his wife.
I said, hold on, I'll be right there. So I
flew to New York, met with him at a bar.
His wife was checking me out, making sure that she
was the one to make sure that was not a charlatan.
And he called me and he says, yeah, my wife
checked you out. She likes you. Will help you. I'm

(52:28):
gonna have a conference call with you these tech companies.
So this is the next few days tech companies do.
On the phone. One of the people on the phone
was all saying, this is this is a horrible idea.
And I said, look, you need you off the phone.
You're negative energy. I told the other people on him,
I don't need your money. And knows I know I
can't get a grant from you this short period of time.

(52:48):
But but there's two ways to make money, make more,
he spend less. So I don't need your cash. I
need your computers. I need your computers, I need your software.
By the way, this is how I ended up with
a partner named into It who twenty thirty really thirty
years later. The chairman of into It is former chairman
of Into it is now a very wealthy man, Brad Smith,

(53:11):
who runs Marshall University in West Virginia. He's still on
my board to this day, and he gave me a
million dollars just recently. But back then, way back when
I didn't know him. I knew the vice president forgiving
corporate giving back then into it, which is makes Quicken software,
and they weren't going to give me a dime. They
didn't know who I was. But all I wanted was

(53:31):
I said, look, can you give me the software. Because
you gave me the software, I can grant it too
small business owners in south central LA. It wasn't called
an in kind grant anyway. I got three hundred thousand
dollars of in kind computers and software and whatever from
these tech companies. Didn't hang up the phone on that
matched the three hundred thousand oars grant from the price sector,

(53:52):
that matched the federal grant for three hundred thousand dollars,
comply maybe compliant with that federal grant, and then the
money could flow. I then went to Turner Construction Company
and said, I need you to start work at costs
because this is a good doing good work through my
five o' one c three taxes at nonprofit organization. I'm

(54:12):
going to give you a nonprofit in kind grant in
kind receipt for a charitable contribution for all the money
you didn't make building this inter city cyber cafe. But
you're going to get a lot of good will from
building this. I want you to do that. And they're like, well,
how when you need this done? And at this point
I need it done in three or four weeks. That's impossible. Look,
nothing's impossible. Just just say yes. It will make you,

(54:33):
make you look great. We're gonna do a parade for you. Whatever.
So they're like, sure, they put this African dude. I
always get a signed the black person. The whole white
company get his sign. It doesn't have any more of
we used to like. And this black guy did not
want to be there, did not want to be I
got one more story for he did not want to
be in sausagral A at all. Nice guy, but didn't

(54:55):
want to be there. Well, he was always there late,
and so if he's late, the workers are late, and
I needed this work done on time. I'm not ladies,
you're gonna hate me for this. Next story. I've apologized,
but I'd had to do what I had to do.
I said, I know how to get these guys to work.
Mary Ayarson, please show up to the work site with
your best smile and just stay there all day. And

(55:17):
she'd get there early, bring coffee and donuts. And somehow
these guys all showed up one time now for work
sometime early, and they stayed late. And they built this
thing on cyber cafe. Now, the Vice President's team shows up,
the security team, the secret service team to do a
security check. And it's a construction site and they can
show up and they're looking around. What the heck's going

(55:39):
on here? And I showed up when they were there
because I knew they'd be drama, and said, look, there's
no problem. I'm doing your job for you. You can
look right through the walls and see there's no bombs,
there's no security threat. So they signed off on the
it's called an advanced team, did an advanced visit for security.
They signed off on it. The Vice President of the
United States came cut the ribbon. We have photos of it,

(55:59):
you can look them up online. It was a classic experience.
And yeah, that that's how I met Michael Milkin. That's
a whole another story. I don't have time to tell you.
But there was one story that I did want to
leave you with, and it left me just that fact. See,
I'm got so excited now. It got me. I've gotten

(56:20):
into this all these battle wounds from from Operation Hope
and what we did and how we did it, and
what we ducked and what we you know, the many
times we could have got plastered. I'll tell you I
had this grant that went sideways. Well it wasn't. It
was a series of grants that we had and we
and we got the we we got the allocations wrong,
and we had multiple years of just bad books. One

(56:45):
day we found out that our bookkeeper, it was a brother,
did not have a bank account. This is like Operation
was Found in ninety two. This was like a ninety
four ninety five. I think our whole budget was like
three hundred thousand dollars or something, but now, of course
seventy five million, give or take. But the guy and
we had so much compassion in our hearts. We hired anybody,

(57:06):
and we hired this guy. Rachel listening to this show
know executive I'm talking about Lance might know and he
did not have a bank account. Our bookkeeper did not
have a bank account. Yes, we quietly walked about the door,
and you know, we gave him a little gift to
go away with. And that was not his fault. It
was ours. We shouldn't have hired him in the first place.
And we got our books in record straight because because

(57:29):
again that's a perfect way to have the government shut
your stuff down or worse, go to prison if you
cannot account for public money. So we was from that
time forward. Once I got saved by that. I think
Fred Smith was our president back then, who was a
former assistant Deputy treasure for the state of California. Once
I got our books and record straight, I made a
vow I would never get into that situation ever again.

(57:54):
I'd be paranoid about the money. And I was, and
I still am. There's been so many times I've had
people steal from me. I've had I had a former
president of the organization take money. I've had board members
try to OUs to me because they thought I was
getting too bricks with my bridges. You know, I was
in LA and I now wanted to move from LA
to a regional. I was in LA and I think

(58:16):
the first office we opened was New York. That's a
whole nother story. But the directors who were in LA,
the board members who were in LA, saw me getting
on planes going across the country and they had to
fight the freeway going from southern California to northern California.
And they were a big deal in LA, but no
one knew them outside of LA. And here I am,
this little black hid complain in New York City and
they were not feeling it. And so before I knew it,

(58:40):
there was a campaign to unseat me for my own nonprofit.
And I had to again once again, you got to
learn this to have over mess and not in it,
and don't be emotional and don't get mad. Get even
success is the best revenge. And ultimately they resigned from
the board. I didn't, and I'm still here and they're not.
And I again, I know the names, and they were

(59:02):
friendly until they weren't. Business capitalism or gladiator sports is
not personal. Do not take this stuff personal. I've just
been amused by all these folks who underestimated me over time,
and they got caught slipping. I didn't, and uh, these
I had this this guy who Bob Bishop was his name,

(59:28):
but he didn't exist, meaning that he was a made
up person. Somebody had hired somebody and uh to try
to take me out because I was talking on this
mess about the check cashing industry or whatever, and this
guy supposedly named Bob Bishop. We investigated. The guy didn't exist,
like he was there, but it wasn't a real person.
But he was. But this person with his name was

(59:48):
sending letters to my board members. And again, if my
records weren't straight, i'd have been out of it. I'd
been out of there. But it was a lie, and
I was able to prove that he I was running
opera shop properly. He said I had basically hit my
hand the cookie jar of Operation Hope, which anybody knows
me knows it's just absolutely not true. And he went away.

(01:00:11):
I didn't, I mean literally, he just stopped. He just
went away when and I think the person who who
was associated with them went away with them. All these experiments,
experiences made me. Haters make it make it greater. Like
all these experiences just made me a better leader and
a better person, made me more resilient. I don't hate anybody.

(01:00:33):
I don't resent anybody. I'm a happy guy, and I'm
still as loving and supportive of even people who player
hated me back then. People who if somebody who player
hated me back then called me today, I still try
to help them. I actually do get these calls all
the time, people who want me to hire them all
this stuff. We have four hundred employees today. We're in
forty two states. We have thousands of volunteers. We have

(01:00:56):
millions of clients. Our partners are the best company and
biggest companies in the country. We have five thousand community
based nonprofit partners. We have a bunch of initiatives like
one million Black Business Initiative with Shopify. Committed one hundred
and ninety million dollars to that initiative. Maybe I'll tell
you that story before I wrap up. We're already over
an hour. Have you enjoyed this, by the way, or

(01:01:16):
to hear me rambling? We have Financial Literacy for All,
which I co chair with Doug mc millan, the CEO
of Walmart, another great leader, and our missionaires to get
eighty percent of the fortune five hundred to make financial
literacy part of its core mission. One mbbor works works
well because it's just really about creating new customers for Shopify.

(01:01:40):
I remember I was on the Rowland Martin Show and
somebody said, well, what's the big deal about Shopify? Why
are they're giving us all this money? I'm like, Uh,
they want more customers, right. And it turns out, even
though I said that in twenty twenty after George Floyd's murder, tears,
turn it out that's that was the best strategy for
twenty twenty four. Like, it wasn't DEI wasn't some minority program.

(01:02:03):
It's just we just you know, they just Shopify wanted
more customers, and we wanted more black businesses to be
created and grown. And so those two things happened to
work together. And uh, there are a lot of other
stuff Operation was doing, but let me stop. Go back
to Shopify for a minute. I had done a town
hall meeting and normally I get paid to speak, but

(01:02:25):
this time this billionaire who ran Shopify was a friend
of mine and asked me to give a speech for
his team for free. I said sure, and so I
did it and it was over and it was virtual,
and and my payments for speaking where that's not my job.
An Operation hope to give my personal time to speak.

(01:02:46):
So if I want to pay to speak, if I'm
want to get paid to speak, you know, that's my
own business as long as I'm doing it on operation
hopes time or an operational's capacity. So I did this
for free. I speaked for fee, soing afford this speaks
for free often. And when it was over, he said, well,
what can I do for you? And I said, well,

(01:03:07):
let's try to make sure that George Floyd situations don't
happen again. Help me, I don't know, help me create
a new million a men, new black businesses in America.
And he said that's interesting. Now I didn't say hook
me up, hook my cousin up, or hoop pooky up
my friend. I said, help me think big about these communities.
He said, well, that's an interesting idea. Send me a proposal.

(01:03:28):
So I wrote something up, very short, because you don't
want to give somebody two three four weeks to forget
about you again. Don't let the perfect become of the
death of the good. I send it right away, and
I waited a few days. Crickets nothing. I waited a
week crickets nothing. So then I wrote a letter back
to Toby Hey Toby you know, love you brother. Thank
you very much for being considerate and caring and wanting

(01:03:50):
to help the community. I recognize that. Hear back for
me that you're probably not interested. No big deal, We'll
do something else down the road. Wish you well. Thanks
for your care, Signed John Bryant send. I get an
email back almost instantly. What are you talking about, John Bryant.
We said, yes, I go to my spam folder. There's

(01:04:11):
a commitment of one hundred and thirty million dollars that
would end up being a he said yes, but it
ultimately became because I worked with It was Toby. I
there's a Toby Y. He used to be there. There's
now Harley Finkelstein, who's the president, who's my guide. He
supports us, and this Caz and all these people there
who have I've growt all these relationships with Shopifi, but
that was Toby the founder, and that ultimately ended up

(01:04:33):
becoming one hundred and thirty million dollar commitment that I cut,
a deal I cut three days before my Hope Global
Forum that allows people to start businesses essentially for free
on Shopify, which is e commerce. And he just always
check your spam folder, but always be gracious. Here's a
rule I use for life in business. Talk without being offensive,

(01:04:56):
Listen without being defensive, and always lead even your adversary
with their dignity because if you don't do that, then
they was they would spend the rest of their life
trying to make you miserable. It becomes personal except over
mess and not in it. So Operation UP today is
coaching all debt. This is hop beside the workplace is
another business model I created and we pioneered. Financial coaching

(01:05:18):
was inside of corporate corporations. Uh So we have a
financial coach for all one hundred thousand Delta employees, the
financial coach for UPS employees, financial coach. Uh so now
for some Walmart employees, for Venetian Hotel employees in Las Vegas.
So so we're paid more than it costs us to

(01:05:40):
do it. That's our sustainability model. So we have we
run a nonprofit like you run a business, even though
it's a five to one C three checkese and status
and we check all the boxes, but we run it
on a sustainable basis. And uh that's what I encourage
you to do is to figure out, uh, can you
solve a problem? Can you? But can you when you
solve that problem, can you run the entity that you're

(01:06:02):
trying to run it to solve the problem with with
the highest level of integrity and yes, vision, but business finesse,
financial acumen and return on the investment. Whether that's a
nonprofit or a for profit, the rules are all the same.
If you want to hear more of these stories, If
this is useful for you, let me know in the

(01:06:23):
comments and I'd be happy to you. As I'm going
through this, there's so much of this background that I
had to manage to maneuver my way through without getting
triggered or upset or petty. I had to always sort
of rise above and keep it going and never give

(01:06:45):
up and never give in, and oftentimes doing things for
free turned into opportunity later on. It was my way
of proving that I was there for the right reasons.
I went there for a quick buck transaction. I was
there because I believed in the mission. And ultimately Opera

(01:07:08):
JOP went moved to home ownership and UH and which
we became a big thing. We've done well over a billion,
maybe two billion dollars in home ownership, disaster response, mortgage crisis.
We did mortgage crisis counseling and coaching. Banks paid us
to work out mortgage to restructure mortgages for people during
the two thousand and eight crisis. We did about a

(01:07:29):
billion dollars of restructuring those mortgages. Yeah, I mean and
on and on and on and on and on and uh.
I've worked with Republican and Democratic administrations. I've served as
an advisor for three We triggered the renaming of the
building on the White House campus called the Freedman's Bank Building.
And we're finishing in our way, continuing our way, in

(01:07:52):
our small way, the work of doctor Martin the King Jr.
And his Poor People's Campaign, as well as the Freedman's
Bank and Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lee of eighteen sixty
five in nineteen sixty eight, this unfinished work, which we
call silver rights, from civil rights to silver Rights. Tell
your friends to follow money and wealth. Tell them to

(01:08:14):
buy the book Financial Literacy for All, which is a
best seller a year after it's publishing as of April.
Tell your friends to follow us on social media at
Operation Hope and at John Hope Bryant, and be inspired,
be encouraged, and listen to the other episodes I have
on the series where we solve other problems for you.
I want to know a whole library of where I

(01:08:35):
unpack and demystify how to live your best life and
how to not just crawl up the latter but own
that dang ladder. At some point, you want to join
the opperatune admission. You can do it with a small
contribution to become a member or for free. See it's
not about the money for me. We're teaching money, but

(01:08:57):
I'm actually not obsessed about money and obsessed with, say,
helping you to take your life back. John O'Brien, Love
and Light. I'll see you in the next episode. Money

(01:09:22):
and Wealth with John O'Brien is a production of the
Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black
Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Then Happened the

(01:11:02):
t