HOPE, the Jackson-based financial services and community development organization that serves several Delta communities, including Itta Bena and Moorhead, has been named one of three finalists in the Wall Street Journal Financial Inclusion Challenge.
The challenge aims to shine a spotlight on the struggles millions of Americans face attaining financial security.
According to a HOPE announcement, the company’s designation as a finalist is based on its “work to bring opportunity to a cluster of small towns in the Mississippi Delta.”
HOPE, which operates credit unions, a policy center and a community development branch, has a credit union in Itta Bena and is currently working with the Board of Aldermen to help upgrade the town’s electrical grid.
More than 120 for-profit and non-profit enterprises entered the challenge. Finalists were selected by a panel of independent judges, among them Darren Walker, president of the philanthropic Ford Foundation, and Dan Schulman, president and CEO of PayPal.
Each enterprise was evaluated for its innovation, scalability, substantiality and impact.
An informational profile of HOPE for the challenge said, “HOPE achieves its mission by providing affordable financial services, leveraging private, public and philanthropic resources, and engaging in policy analysis to address a range of areas that affect economic mobility, including jobs, education, healthcare, housing and food access.
“Since it began operations in 1994, HOPE has generated over $2 billion in financing that has benefitted more than 1 million people.”
The president and CEO of HOPE, Bill Bynum, sits on the boards of the Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation and the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund, and he is a member of the U.S. Partnership on Mobility From Poverty.
The two other finalists are Propel, a software company that has created an app to help food stamp participants manage their benefits, save money and earn extra income, and Oportun, a California-based financial institution that provides personal loans to help people with little or no credit history establish credit.
The winner of the Financial Inclusion Challenge will be announced on May 9 in New York.
• Contact Kathryn Eastburn at 581-7235 or keastburn@gwcommonwealth.com.
