Company Profile
Hope Enterprise Corporation
Company Overview
HOPE (Hope Enterprise Corporation, Hope Credit Union and Hope Policy
Institute) provides affordable financial services; leverages private, public
and philanthropic resources; and engages in policy analysis to fulfill its
mission of strengthening communities, building assets, and improving lives
in economically distressed parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi
and Tennessee.
Since 1994, HOPE has generated over $2.5 billion in financing and related
services for the unbanked and underbanked, entrepreneurs, homeowners,
nonprofit organizations, health care providers and other community
development purposes. Collectively, these projects have benefitted more than 1
million individuals in one of the nation’s most impoverished regions.
Company History
For 25 years, HOPE has helped marginalized residents across the Deep South climb the economic ladder by advancing financial inclusion, building assets, and by changing systems that disenfranchise families. HOPE is a family of organizations comprised of:
• a cooperative financial institution predominantly owned by people of color and women that drives capital into banking desert by converting every $1 of equity into $8 of insured deposits for community development financing, and that brings thousands of people from the economy’s edge into the financial mainstream (Hope Credit Union),
• a nonprofit intermediary that aggregates and braids public and private resources to fuel innovative, impactful solutions that foster jobs, education, access to healthy food, healthcare and affordable housing and other mobility drivers in high poverty places (Hope Enterprise Corporation), and
• an advocacy arm that shapes policies and practices to narrow opportunity chasms forged by decades of underinvestment – using data and analysis mined from our member-owners, communities, and internal subject matter experts; and that mobilizes Deep South residents and stakeholders around shared priorities (Hope Policy Institute).
Together, these entities mitigate the extent to which factors such as race, gender, ethnicity, birthplace, and wealth obstruct the trajectory of one’s life. For over a quarter century, HOPE has positively impacted the lives of more than one million people in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee, channeling more than $2.5 billion in financing into a range of community shaping, life-changing activities.