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ATLANTA – Sept. 13, 2017 – Global financial dignity and economic empowerment nonprofit, Operation HOPE, Inc., announced today that it has opened its 100th HOPE Inside location. The new office, located in Baltimore, Maryland, was opened in partnership with The Columbia Bank. It will deliver Operation HOPE’s core programming to residents of Baltimore and communities in the surrounding area.
“The opening of our 100th location marks a significant milestone for Operation HOPE and the impact of our work across the nation,” said John Hope Bryant, founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE. “We are grateful for the support and partnership from The Columbia Bank and Fulton Financial Corporation to open this new installation of HOPE Inside to provide people in the Baltimore area with the financial tools required to take their lives back and create a more secure future.”
HOPE Inside is a unique empowerment model that brings Operation HOPE’s financial dignity programming to low- and middle-income individuals and families at no cost to the client. Through HOPE Inside, an Operation HOPE financial wellbeing coach supports clients with the fundamentals to raise their FICO scores, buy homes, build their own businesses, or simply make better decisions with the money they have. There are now 100 existing locations across the nation and commitments for more than 400 new offices within the next 24 months.
The HOPE Inside model received the 2016 Innovator of the Year recognition by American Banker magazine.
The client experience at HOPE Inside is rooted in financial dignity and empowerment. The personalized one-on-one coaching process integrates four key steps: 1) Giving back dignity, 2) Reintroducing individuals to themselves, 3) Offering redemption, and 4) Providing opportunities through purpose-driven projects. Clients are counseled on the language of money and work with Operation HOPE financial wellbeing coaches to transform established financial mindsets.
Programs include credit and money management support, home buyer counseling, and entrepreneurship training. Every office holds consumer credit counseling certification, CFPB, FDIC, U.S. SBA, EITC, HUD, and FEMA applications and partnerships. Through HOPE Inside, Operation HOPE is the only organization certified by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council to operate within a bank. Through the HOPE-700-Credit-Score-
“This initiative has been quietly moving FICO scores within communities an average of 120 points over 18-24 months,” Bryant said. “We work to get bankers out of the ‘no’ business, and into the ‘yes’ business, by helping to rehabilitate the credit, financial, and overall wellbeing profile of the HOPE client, and the future bank borrower, and by extension, the community as a whole.”
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About Operation HOPE
Since 1992, Operation HOPE has been moving America from civil rights to “silver rights” with the mission of making free enterprise and capitalism work for the underserved. Through its core programs, the nonprofit has provided financial dignity and economic empowerment to over 2.6 million individuals worldwide, and $2 billion in economic activity for the disenfranchised—turning check cashing customers into banking customers, renters into homeowners, small business dreamers into small business owners and minimum wage workers into living wage consumers. Project 5117 is HOPE’s multi-year four-pronged approach to combating economic inequality that aims to improve financial literacy, increase business role models and business internships for youth, and stabilize the American dream by boosting credit scores. Operation HOPE recently received its third consecutive 4-star charity rating for fiscal management and commitment to transparency and accountability by the prestigious non-profit evaluator, Charity Navigator—further establishing it as a best-in-class organization.
For more information: www.OperationHOPE.org
Follow Operation HOPE on Twitter @operationhope
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