After testing a group of low income black youth in Washington, Gallup identified these four young adults as having extraordinary fortitude for building big organizations. This summer, each will receive a paid internship where they will also earn college credits.


Led by Gallup Chairman and CEO Jim Clifton, Gallup is working to identify and nurture the next generation of aspirational ‘Builders’ in America — and then Clifton and the company is working to back their business ideas.  In fact, Clifton is personally backing several of the new business ventures himself.

What America needs is a Generation of Builders, community by community. It does not really matter whether they want to build a network of daycare centers, or a network of barber shops, or a network of community development organizations, or a high tech firm — as long as they BUILD.  

What our country and our underserved communities need most are a new generation of jobs, and Jim Clifton and I are squarely focused in our respective work on this goal. My book, “How The Poor Can Save Capitalism” and Operation HOPE’s work to put in place a network of HOPE Inside Youth locations (part of Project 5117), and Jim Clifton’s book “The Coming Jobs War,” and his work here to nurture and fund a Builders class, are but two examples of the work we are engaged in to nurture change.

Operation HOPE and Gallup have also teamed up around the now annual Gallup-HOPE Index, which is the nation’s only index of youth economic energy.

Let’s go…

John Hope Bryant

Pin It on Pinterest