Every member is an inspiration

‘Hope’s work is built on helping people who overcome hurdles every day,’ says CEO Bill Bynum.

Bill Bynum never has to look far for inspiration at Hope Credit Union in Jackson, Miss. Each loan and every account tells a story.

One of Hope’s early business loans helped launch a Louisiana company that employs visually impaired people to make surgical gauze for health-care providers. A new employee there was “overwhelmed with emotion” as she told Bynum this job—her first—meant she could support her family.

A Mississippi woman used a gift for her 100th birthday to open her first savings account at Hope Credit Union because it was the first time she felt welcome at a financial institution.

“You’d have to be a rock to not be moved by the significance of what it means to people to be treated with respect and have access to basic financial tools that so many others take for granted,” says Bynum, CEO at the $355 million asset credit union. “Every member we get out of a debt trap, every person who becomes a first-time homebuyer, everyone who establishes their first relationship with a depository institution that’s going to help them climb the economic ladder is an inspiration.”

 

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