Let me tell you why I said yes.
When Operation HOPE called about the Goodwill Ambassadors program, I didn’t ask what the commitment looked like first. I asked what the actual work was. I’ve said yes to plenty of things with good intentions behind them, and I’ve learned the hard way that intentions don’t teach anybody how to build a savings account.
Operation HOPE has been doing the actual work since 1992. John Hope Bryant built something called HOPE Inside: real coaches, in real neighborhoods, sitting across the table from real people, rebuilding credit and confidence, for free. Over four million people have gone through it. That’s not a pitch. That’s three decades of receipts.
So when they asked Boris and me to stand alongside people like Roger Goodell and Killer Mike as HOPE Goodwill Ambassadors, I said yes. Then I asked what’s next.
Here’s what’s next for me personally. Financial literacy is the thing I keep coming back to, in every room I sit in for this foundation. Not because it’s trendy. Because I grew up watching women in my family hold entire households together with money nobody taught them how to talk about. Nobody sat them down and explained what a credit score actually measures, or how compound interest works for you or against you depending on which side of the table you’re on. I don’t want that to be the inheritance we pass down. I want the next one to look different.
That’s the frame I’m bringing into everything KFF backs under LIFT ALL this year, starting with this partnership. Operation HOPE already has the coaches, the curriculum, and the track record. My job is to use my voice so more people walk through that door.
This isn’t charity. It’s an inheritance we’re finally writing down.
Tap in → kodjoefoundation.org/lift-all
