Dear Friends,
For 24 years, and more intensively in the decade since the financial crisis, HOPE has concentrated its resources on closing the financial service gaps that limit opportunity for people and places existing on the precarious fringe of America’s economy. Roughly one in four, or 33.5 million, of the nation’s households either have no formal relationship with a financial institution, or look outside the banking system for credit and other financial services. The vast majority of these people are low income. Half of households making less than $15,000 a year and more than a third of those making between $15,000 and $30,000 a year are either unbanked or underbanked.
Entire communities are deprived of access to quality financial services. For example, the 50 most economically mobile counties in the United States have significantly higher rates of access to bank branches, conventional mortgage lending, and small business capital. In contrast, nearly three-quarters of the nation’s 50 least economically mobile counties are also persistent-poverty counties that lack the financial resources needed to adequately support schools, small businesses, health care providers, and other essential contributors to economic opportunity. In each case, these conditions disproportionately harm people of color, perpetuating myriad debilitating racial disparities.
This is why in 2017 HOPE provided more than $100 million in financing to address financial services gaps in low-income, minority and rural communities across the Deep South and opened three new locations in underserved communities, including our first office in Alabama.
Our direct impact was multiplied by using data and lessons gleaned from transactions conducted by HOPE’s 44,000 member-owners to engage government, philanthropy, banks and others to forge policies and practices that help transform banking deserts into opportunity oases.
On the following pages, we share stories that demonstrate what can be achieved when these elements come together and people are given the chance – even in a region that is home to 1/3 of the nation’s persistent poverty counties. Thank you for supporting HOPE in our quest to create opportunity where it is needed most.
Sincerely,
Bill Bynum,
Chief Executive Officer