Business, Media and Culture 2019

For more than 30 years, Bill Bynum has worked to advance economic opportunity for disenfranchised populations. Bynum began his career in North Carolina by establishing nationally-recognized programs at Self-Help and at NC Rural Economic Development Center.

In 1994, Bynum moved to Mississippi to become the founding CEO of the Enterprise Corporation of the Delta, and in 1995, organized Hope Community Credit Union.   

Today, HOPE (Hope Enterprise Corporation, Hope Credit Union and Hope Policy Institute) is a family of organizations that provides financial services; leverages resources; and engages in policy analysis to strengthen communities, build assets, and improve lives across the Deep South.  Since 1994, HOPE has generated more than $2.5 billion in financing that has benefitted more than 1 million people in one of the nation’s most impoverished regions.

Bynum, who has served in advisory roles for three U.S. presidents, is currently on the boards of the Aspen Institute, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Prosperity Now, and William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation. Bynum previously chaired the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Consumer Advisory Board and the Treasury Department’s Community Development Advisory Board. A recipient of the University of North Carolina Distinguished Alumnus Award, Bynum and HOPE have been honored with the John P. McNulty Prize (Aspen Global Leadership Network), Ned Gramlich Award for Responsible Finance (Opportunity Finance Network), Annie Vamper Award (National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions), Herb Wegner Award (National Credit Union Foundation), National Entrepreneur of the Year (Ernst & Young/Kauffman Foundation), Rural Hero Award (National Rural Assembly), Pete Crear Lifetime Achievement Award (African American Credit Union Coalition) and The Wall St. Journal/Met Life Foundation Financial Inclusion Challenge.

In the two decades since its founding, HOPE has grown into an approximately $300 million community development financial institution with some 50,000 members, providing more than $490 million in business loans. HOPE has financed medical centers, schools and manufacturing facility expansions. Most importantly, HOPE opened these doors for economic opportunity in a region where 37 percent of its members were unbanked before they joined the financial institution.