JACKSON, Miss.––Bill Bynum, president and CEO of HOPE Credit Union, has been named as one of three winners of the Heinz Awards for the Economy.
Bynum is being joined by fair workplace policy advocates Dina Bakst and Sherry Leiwant, co-founders of A Better Balance. The trio will share an unrestricted cash award of $250,000.
In announcing the winners, the Pittsburgh-based Heinz Awards recognized Bynum for his work to found HOPE, which in addition to the credit union includes Hope Enterprise Corporation and Hope Policy Institute and which provide financial services, aggregate resources and engage in “advocacy to combat the extent to which factors such as race, gender, birthplace and wealth limit one’s ability to prosper,” the organization said.
“HOPE works in the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee, a region where indicators of economic mobility such as employment, housing, education and healthcare are among the worst in the United States,” the statement continued. “Entrenched poverty and racialdisparities have exacerbated these conditions, as have the lack of access to traditional banking services for the region’s most economically distressed people and places, most notably in the Mississippi Delta and Alabama Black Belt.”
Attacking the Challenges
The Heinz Foundation noted that since 1994 HOPE has attacked all of those challenges and more by providing affordable, responsibly structured financial services and advocated for policies and practices that bridge opportunity gaps and close the racial wealth divide in the Deep South.
“These efforts have generated more than $3 billion in financing that has benefited nearly two-million people across the Deep South, while influencing policies that helped shape the nation’s community development finance sector into a force for diversity and inclusion,” the Foundation said. “Eight out of 10 people served by the credit union are people of color and 60% are women, over one-third were unbanked or underbanked prior to joining HOPE, and 75% of HOPE’s member households earned incomes of less than $50,000 last year.”
The Foundation further noted that among the homeowners reached by HOPE, nine out of 10 arefirst time homebuyers, supported by products designed to directly address the consequences of the racial wealth gap.
Closing the Wealth Gap
“Financial institutions can either perpetuate the nation’s racial wealth gap or make the necessary,structural changes to close it. There is no middle ground,” said Bynum. “In an increasingly diverse nation, our collective self-interest hinges on the presence of a financial system that works for everyone, particularly historically people of color, who comprise an emerging majority ofAmericans.”
The Foundation said HOPE’s impact has been greatest during times of crisis, including after Hurricane Katrina devastated lives, homes and businesses in the region. HOPE’s advocacy resulted in policy changes that doubled the amount of public funds available to individuals without flood or property insurance, and further partnered with a local foundation and utility company to fund accounts that enabled 2,500 people to access Federal Emergency Management Agency funds for vital resources such as food, clothes, tarps and relocation assistance, the Foundation said.
In addition, HOPE also managed recovery programs that assisted more than 10,000 homeowners and small businesses.
In response to the current pandemic, and resulting economic crisis, HOPE financed more than 5,000 Paycheck Protection Program loans—89% for businesses owned by people of color and half owned by women—many that were turned down by banks with which they had an existingrelationship, according to the Foundation.
A ‘Shining Light’
“The Heinz Awards honors Bill for shining light on and addressing the toll that decades ofunderinvestment, neglect, predatory lending and a lack of access to basic financial services has had on those living in the rural Deep South,” said Teresa Heinz, chairman of the Heinz Family Foundation. “Through HOPE’s program of resources and services, Bill has crafted a proven model to stop this trajectory of entrenched poverty and create a new future for generations of Americans, in the South and all across rural America.”
Created to honor the memory of the late U.S. Senator John Heinz, the Foundation said the Heinz Awards honors excellence and achievement in areas of great importance to Senator Heinz. The 26th awards bring the total number of recipients to 158 and reflect more than $30 million givensince the program was launched in 1993.
Also Recognized
Bakst and Sherry Leiwant were recognized for “using the power of advocacy and the law to advance justice for workers so they can care for themselves and their loved ones without jeopardizing their economic security.
“A Better Balance advances worker protections on issues such as paid family and medical leave, paid sick time, fair and flexible scheduling, protections for pregnant and breastfeeding workers, affordable quality child care and elder care, and equal pay,” the Foundation said. “The organization’s work has impacted millions of families across the country and helped to elevate the importance of support for caregiving workers in the national conversation as a key cornerstone ofadvancing economic, gender and racial justice.”
Recipients of the 26th Heinz Awards will be honored at a virtual event in December.