A career and life that has been centered around paying “Hope” forward
Bill Bynum has done a lot of good in his career. As chief executive officer of Jackson-based HOPE which consists of Hope Enterprise Corporation, Hope Credit Union and Hope Policy Institute, Bynum and his team provide financial services, aggregate resources, and engage in advocacy to mitigate the degree to which factors such as race, gender, birthplace and wealth limit one’s ability to prosper. And as a result, Bynum’s leadership in these efforts has benefitted over three million people across the South, in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee and has influencing billions of dollars in investment in persistent poverty communities nationwide.”
Not to be lost in these staggering financial numbers are the thousands of individuals and businesses Bynum has “done a lot of good” for—and that is what drives the man.
Bynum was born and lived in East Harlem in New York City, until the first grade, when his parents decided to return to North Carolina, where they were originally from. “We moved back to North Carolina just outside of Chapel Hill to an old mill town actually named after my ancestors who had once worked there as slaves. In fact, the town of Bynum was home to one of the largest cotton mills in the country until the 1970s when it ceased operation,” said Bynum.
Bynum stayed in the Chapel Hill area after graduating high school, attending the University of North Carolina coincidentally at the same time a young man named Michael Jordan was on campus. He initially planned on studying journalism. “I loved writing at the time and still do,” he said. Instead, Bynum found himself pulled into student government and ended up earning a double major in political science and psychology. “From there, in the mid-80s, I was on my way to law school, but got sidetracked into going to work with an organization that helped people who were losing their jobs due to outsourcing and cheap labor abroad. I was brought into this organization to explain and teach what worker ownership was, as its main goal was to act as a worker’s co-op, and to get their feedback, as well.”
And, with that Bynum was hooked. “It was great to help many of their workers buy the companies they had worked for, help them restructure them and, essentially, save their jobs.
“I believe we’re products of our environments and I was just led to do this kind of work, which is helping people in need, or who need assistance addressing issues that came about through no fault of their own,” Bynum explained. “When I moved back to North Carolina, there was still segregation in place in many areas, for instance. There even existed a small credit union in the Black community where I lived that was run out of a man’s garage! That’s how people helped each other, by pooling their resources and working together.”
These experiences had an enormous impact on Bynum in his formative years. “People were not allowed access to or credit from their local banks so they had to be innovative and create such opportunities for themselves. I saw the power and importance of such solidarity. The very suit that I often wore to college was paid for by my grandmother going to that gentleman’s garage,” he recalled. That same credit union still exists to this day, on a much larger, nation-wide scale by the name of Self-Help Federal Credit Union.
“I grew up always asking the question ‘Why’—and I certainly asked ‘why’ about many things I saw in those early years of my career: why couldn’t people band their resources together and help others? Why couldn’t communities become self-sufficient on their own? That type of insistent questioning led me to where I am today,” said Bynum.
Bynum did in fact get accepted into the University of North Carolina’s law school. But his dream of having a brilliant legal career, by that time, and been replaced by other dreams his credit union work with Self-Help had prompted and fostered.
“In the mid-80s, I came to realize that economic opportunities could have more of a lasting impact on society’s well-being, so I made the decision to continue trying to increase and enlarge the scope of such opportunities for people who needed them,” said Bynum. “I previously had in my head that I was going to be the next Thurgood Marshall, but I thought that economic advancement might be more enduring and beneficial in the long run than even legal opinion.”
Bynum remained with Self-Help and witnessed the credit union grow exponentially and rapidly. “We were able to branch out further to assist rural business owners and farmers, women-owned, and people of color-owned businesses, as well as helping many first-time homeowners.”
Soon, however, another career change came for Bynum. He left Self-Help in 1989 and went to work with the North Carolina Rural Center in Raleigh, which primarily provided assistance to micro-businesses in areas of that state that needed it.
“I ran a division for the Rural Center modeled after the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh,” he explained. “There, essentially, people pooled their resources together and made very small loans to others in their North Carolina community—a peer-supported network as it were. We ended up becoming the largest micro-business program in the nation.”
Bynum continued, “Interestingly, the founder of the Grameen Bank, which we were modeled after, visited us and we gave him a tour of North Carolina. This gentleman, Mohammed Yunus, later won the Nobel Peace Prize for the work he did in Bangladesh.”
“God has plans for us and you really just never know,” said Bynum. While in North Carolina Bill met George Penick who was the head of the Foundation for the Mid-South in Jackson and, until he retired, was Head of School at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School. “When I first met him, George was working in North Carolina at the Babcock Foundation, but was recruited by Governor William Winter, Billy Percy, and others to come to Mississippi to start the Foundation. Funding was made available, and Bill Moyers even became involved with the process as an advisor. The Mississippi Delta was targeted by the Foundation for the Mid-South. One of the components of the work was to create an economic development arm, and I was recruited to get that off the ground by George,” says Bynum.
“I had never previously been to Mississippi, but it’s interesting: I had heard Governor Winter lecture in North Carolina about what was currently going on in the state, I was impressed. I had some preconceived notions about Mississippi—like a lot of people, you know—but Governor Winter dispelled those for me. I think hearing and meeting him, ultimately, is what led to me to accept the job.”
Bynum made the move to the Magnolia State in 1994. “My late wife, Hope, and I decided to roll the dice, as it were, and give the job a chance for a couple of years,” said Bynum.
His first impression of Jackson and Mississippi?
“Everybody I met was extremely friendly. My co-workers and the Board at Foundation for the Mid-South turned out to be some of the best people I’ve ever had the privilege to know, and I made friends for life. I liked Jackson and saw a lot of potential—and I’m still here,” Bynum chuckles. “So many wonderful people were helpful to me when I first came to Jackson: Harry Walker, Bud Robinson, Mike Espy and Robert Gibbs, who is on our Board now here at HOPE—and that’s just to name a few.”
Bynum had been entrusted with a $1.5 million grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts to “transform” the Mississippi Delta: that was his mission upon arrival in Jackson for his new job.
“It was a good start,” he recalled. “We launched the Enterprise Corporation of the Delta (ECD) but it didn’t take long to see that the needs of the businesses we were in place to help exceeded our funding. We had to seek out other resources.”
Around the same time, Bynum joined the Anderson Methodist Church in Jackson and the pastor revealed to him that he had considered forming a credit union to be an alternative to the payday lenders and check cashing businesses near the church. “I got involved and that was the actual beginning of Hope Credit Union. My day job was with ECD and I spent off time working with Hope as a viable alternative to the check cashers in the neighborhood,” said Bynum.
Around 2002, the ECD merged with Hope Credit Union. “We got other churches on board, across all denominational and racial lines, and opened an office in the Jackson Medical Mall,” Bynum said. “We began to grow rapidly and expanded into service and retail assistance—as well as housing—into the sectors where we could provide help and assistance.”
In 2004, they entered the New Orleans market to help neighborhoods in and around the city, and after Hurricane Katrina hit, HOPE found itself in the middle of the rebuilding process for residents in New Orleans and along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. “We were assisted greatly by Jim Barksdale in our efforts. We ended up providing financial counseling to over 10,000 families on the Coast as part of the State’s recovery effort along with helping hundreds of businesses in New Orleans. Over that time, we grew from about 4,000 members to over 9,000 and from a staff of 50 to 150,” said Bynum.
While Bynum and his staff were still catching their breath from the aftermath of Katrina, the financial meltdown of 2008-2009 hit—and it impacted the rural areas HOPE served severely.
“We were able to come in and provide assistance where traditional banks could—or would—not,” Bynum recalled. “In the Mississippi Delta alone, we took over banks in Drew, Shaw, Itta Bena and Moorhead, for example, and converted them to credit union branches. We also entered into the Memphis and Little Rock markets. Today we have a presence in Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama and the Memphis, Tennessee area. Our services have expanded and, frankly, we’re busier than ever,” said Bynum.
When asked to name the proudest moment of his career, Bynum answered, “In many ways, I think I would say it’s just a culmination of things. As beautiful as the Mississippi Delta is, it is also one of most economically-distressed areas of the country. People are stretched to their limits and beyond these days. To help these folks get on their feet, stabilize their lives and simply survive, is gratifying enough. And in the midst of the pandemic, Hope provided business loans to entrepreneurs in order to keep their doors open. My team has stepped up and done the impossible, really: they have helped those most vulnerable in our region and done so well, with timeliness and dignity. That’s what I am most proud of. I’m glad we’re here to be able to help people.”
Although too humble to name them, Bynum’s career highlights and accomplishments are expansive. He serves on the boards of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta—New Orleans branch, Aspen Institute, NAACP Legal & Education Defense Fund, Black Vision Fund, Deep South Today, Churchill Capital IV, on the U.S. Treasury Department’s Advisory Committee on Racial Equity, and as an advisor to Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and E Pluribus Unum. Bynum also previously chaired the Treasury Department’s Community Development Advisory Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Consumer Advisory Board, is a member of the U.S. Academy of Arts & Sciences and an alumnus of the Henry Crown Fellowship, Emerson Collective Dial Fellowship and Salzburg Global Fellowship. A recipient of the University of North Carolina Distinguished Alumnus Award, Bynum’s honors include the Myrlie & Medgar Evers Voices of Courage & Justice Award, John W. Gardner Leadership Award, Heinz Award, John P. McNulty Prize (Aspen Global Leadership Network), Ned Gramlich Award for Responsible Finance (Opportunity Finance Network), 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 Annie Vamper Helping Hands Award (National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions) .
In June of 2020, Netflix announced a $10 million deposit in Hope Credit Union as one of its first investments in a $100 million initiative to build economic opportunity in Black communities. It marked HOPE’s first Transformational Deposit, a low interest rate money market or certificate of deposit with a mission driven return. Transformational Deposits represent an important source of capital to fund HOPE’s lending. On any given day, more than 2/3 of HOPE’s members have less than $1,000 on deposit with Hope Credit Union, so the organization must import capital to lend. Transformational Deposits fill the gap for HOPE to fund the small business, mortgage and consumer loans HOPE uses to change lives and communities. Since the initial investment by Netflix, over 450 corporations, nonprofit organizations and individuals have made Transformational Deposits in HOPE, including ones made by NIKE, Costco and Paypal.
Bynum said it’s truly a blessing to be able to do work that he enjoys and that allows him to let his creativity and business acumen flourish. In 2024, HOPE launched a three year strategic plan where the organization committed to eradicate the Black / White Homeownership gap in the Deep South; increase economic mobility through mission aligned partners including small municipalities and Historically Black Colleges and Universities; advance climate resiliency and enhance the digital and technology infrastructure of HOPE to increase new and existing member engagement. HOPE was also recently selected to manage $156 million through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Solar for All program in Arkansas and Mississippi. HOPE will use the award to make the savings of solar power accessible to homeowners and renters who live in under resourced communities.
“I’m committed to make a difference and I’m fortunate to work with a staff that shares that commitment,” he says. “I don’t have a whole lot of hobbies. But, I’m on a number of boards of organizations that share my commitment to helping others so…there you have it!”
Bynum, who resides in Ridgeland with his wife, Denise, loves to get out in the field and talk to the members of Hope Credit Union. “We rely on them to get it ‘right’ and we are accountable to them since they’re our member owners,” he says. “I listen to their opinions and it helps me so much in my job and in what I do.”
A devoted and dedicated man of the community for many years over a fascinating career, Bill Bynum will no doubt continue to act as an advocate and leader for the South for many years to come.
We can only “hope.”
By Jack Criss
