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We are pleased to share HOPE’s 2023 Annual Impact Report, “HOPE Makes It Happen.” The report chronicles HOPE’s efforts to expand economic opportunity throughout the Deep South over the last year.

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As we celebrate HOPE’s 29th anniversary and mark the start of our 30th year, we invite you to view our 2022 Annual Impact Report – Owning the Moment.
 
In a diverse country, where people of color are becoming America’s emerging majority, it is in our collective interest to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to realize his or her potential. At HOPE, we do this by fostering ownership. Over the course of nearly three decades, we have catalyzed an ecosystem of allies who share this commitment to create an economy that works for all. Thanks to you, we are in a better position than we have ever been to carry out this important work.

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During the past two years of social, health and economic upheaval, those in society who are most vulnerable – women, people of color, rural residents, those who earn lower incomes and hold less wealth – faced the greatest risk of irreparable harm. The pandemic widened longstanding disparities, and laid bare systemic barriers that prevent people of color – America’s emerging majority – from fully contributing to the nation’s prosperity.

Across the Deep South, where these pernicious conditions are particularly severe, HOPE stood in the breach to support people on the economy’s edge, helping our neighbors survive, and forging pathways for them to realize their potential.

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HOPE’s work combines historic moments into a movement toward economic justice – a movement that affords opportunity to ALL people, and that propels America onward in our journey toward a more perfect union. 

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Across the Deep South, generations of resilient public servants, artists and business leaders have broken barriers, distinguishing themselves, while making life better for others. In a region marked by entrenched economic, racial and social disparities, HOPE taps into this wellspring of determination, innovation and courage to fulfill our mission.

HOPE is especially proud to work alongside and continue the legacy of countless barrier breakers, including those who are longtime leaders and those of the next generation. Together, we are the barrier breakers for this time.

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HOPE’s story is comprised of individuals, families, communities, and many partners who have proven that when we work together, lives flourish.

During this silver anniversary year, we look back, reflecting on the lessons gleaned from our collective efforts. We also look beside us, thankful for the people and communities we serve, and the partners who helped make HOPE’s work possible. And we look ahead, building on our experience to plot the course for the critical work that remains.

Based in the heart of the Deep South, HOPE’s work is inextricably linked to our region’s pivotal role in America’s ongoing struggle for social and economic justice. At a time when the nation confronts unsustainable division and disparities, HOPE moves forward, steadfast in our commitment to build bridges in the pursuit of the common good.

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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 pages of our 2017 Impact Report, 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 one-third of the nation’s persistent poverty counties. Thank you for supporting HOPE in our quest to create opportunity where it is needed most.

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Opportunity can be an education that changes a child’s destiny or medical care that saves a grandmother’s life.

Opportunity can mean safety and security after a life of fear and uncertainty, or the promise of a fresh start after a mistake.

Opportunity can ride in on the back of a new truck or open the door to a new house and with it, a new family legacy.

Opportunity can overcome language barriers and seek out those small, forgotten corners where it is needed most.

Opportunity comes in many forms.

But what every opportunity has in common, what every opportunity inspires, what every opportunity brings, is hope.

Opportunity is HOPE.

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