The Part Nobody Shows: How Real Wealth Is Actually Built

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "The Part Nobody Shows: How Real Wealth Is Actually Built"

Money And Wealth with John Hope Bryant
The Black Effect Podcast Network & iHeartPodcasts
Release Date: April 2, 2026

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode delivers a behind-the-scenes look at how real, sustainable wealth—and organizational success—are built, focusing on the crucial but often invisible elements: financial management, operational discipline, transparency, and strong systems. Host John Hope Bryant, founder of Operation Hope, is joined by Brian Betts (President & CFO) for a candid, in-depth conversation about the ‘back office’ realities that underpin effective social impact and wealth-building, particularly in the Black community.

The episode reveals the actual practices that make large-scale nonprofits thrive long-term, emphasizing that passion and vision are not enough—financial acumen, compliance, and partnership are equally vital. The tone is direct, encouraging, and gives practical advice for anyone interested in building and sustaining financial health, whether in nonprofit, for-profit, or personal ventures.

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Episode Breakdown

Setting the Stage: What You Don’t See

• [02:28] John Hope Bryant explains the episode’s intent: "We see the hype ... But you very rarely see what has to happen behind the scenes for sustainable success, which is excellence in execution, excellence in operations and excellence in financial management."
• John introduces Brian Betts as the key operator behind Operation Hope’s financial and operational integrity, celebrating their 12th consecutive 4-star rating from Charity Navigator—a rare achievement reflecting accountability and transparency.

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Brian Betts’ Backstory & Mission Fit

• [06:43] Brian Betts shares his journey from public accounting (top 6 international CPA firm), to corporate America, to landing in nonprofit work focusing on homelessness.
  • Nonprofit work provided "mission fulfillment" missing from previous jobs. “I found my people when I got into the nonprofit industry.”
  • He points out the hidden nature of homelessness: "Most people think of the person on the street... but that's just chronic homelessness, a small percentage of those actually homeless."
  • Common thread: Both John and Brian share personal or professional experiences with homelessness, affecting their understanding of systemic vulnerability.

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Why a CFO Should Run a Nonprofit

• [10:27] Betts: As a financial literacy organization, Operation Hope intentionally places the CFO in the president’s seat—to ensure day-to-day decisions, growth, and mission delivery are always grounded in financial discipline.
  • "Nonprofits are still a business and you have to run it like a business if you want to help people on a long-term basis."
  • [11:31] Bryant expands: "A nonprofit is a corporation like any other..." Except “the profits go to our shareholders, which is the community.”

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Structure & Roles: Who Does What?

• [15:14] Betts: CFO has two major functions:
  1. Accounting: Record history accurately (compliance, standards, statements for public/banks).
  2. Finance: Forecast & project so the organization doesn’t "run off the road."
  • "You have to prioritize your investments ... with limited funds, you want to invest in everything, but that's not always possible."
• John explains his division as founder, chairman, and CEO, with Betts as president/CFO/COO—roles are separated for good governance.

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Inside the Finance Department

• [21:15] Betts: On the finance team—six people, focused on compliance, grant management, payroll, and multistate regulatory filings.
  • “A team that is small but mighty ... they handle a lot of that infrastructure to keep us in line with compliance.”
• [23:49] Betts: Nonprofits are under high scrutiny—"you've got to be good stewards of that funding.”

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Audit vs. Finance

• [25:11] Bryant asks: Why pay for an audit?
• [25:36] Betts explains: Audits provide mandatory and trust-building validation (required by law, funders, banks, donors).
  • “It’s all about trust—trust, but verify.”
  • Auditors check controls, confirm numbers (assets, investments, real property), and especially revenue recognition.

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Deep Dive: Nonprofit Books, Revenue, and In-Kind

• [27:07–31:48] The pair dig into nonprofit accounting:
  • Three sets of books:
    1. Cash basis: Actual money in/out.
    2. Accrual basis: All commitments, even if cash hasn’t moved.
    3. Functional allocation: Matching revenues/expenses with the year or project to assess true break-even/profitability.
  • “Nonprofits are the only entity I’m aware of that have what I call legal double books.” — John [27:07]
• In-kind revenue (e.g., donated office space from bank partners) is crucial:
  • IRS allows nonprofits to book the value of donated goods/services both as (non-cash) revenue and offsetting expenses.
  • "There are two ways to make money: you make more, or you spend less." — Bryant [34:49]
  • John recounts how a funding crisis led to the innovative "inside the bank branch" model now scaled to 350+ physical locations and 1,200 satellites, enabled by in-kind support.

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Assets, Liabilities, and Grant Management

• [46:19] Bryant asks: How can something you receive (asset) also be a liability?
• [47:09] Betts: E.g. Child savings accounts—Operation Hope holds funds (an asset), but is obliged to disburse those funds (a liability).
• Multi-year grants: If a donor pays $1M upfront for five years, you must hold/use it as agreed, not spend it all at once, or risk technical default.
• "Mission without management means the whole vision collapses." — Bryant [48:58]

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Financial Statements 101

• [49:55] Betts: Breaks down the balance sheet:
  • Assets: What you own.
  • Liabilities: What you owe.
  • Equity/net assets: What’s left. “So what do I have that is valuable? Take out what I owe…what’s left is your equity or net assets in a nonprofit world.” — Betts [49:55]
• John encourages listeners to replay this basic (but vital) accounting segment.

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Managing Through Crisis

• [53:53] Betts recounts a major crisis: audit firm quits days before a government deadline. Solution: rely on strong relationships to find a new (and better) audit partner within days.
  • “Don’t think of your vendors just as vendors. They’re your partners.” — Betts [56:56]
• John shares earlier, harder lessons—hiring mistakes, internal fraud, emphasizing the importance of not making decisions based on emotion:
  • "Don't get emotional about your business...You may be smart, but it's what you don't know that you don't know [that hurts]." — Bryant [59:48, 78:04]

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What Makes a Nonprofit Healthy?

• [60:52] Betts: Charity Navigator’s 4-star rating reflects both fiscal health and transparency; Operation Hope is among the top 7% of U.S. nonprofits.
  • “For 12 consecutive years, we have gotten a four star rating…This last, I think the last two ratings were perfect scores of 100 in both categories.”
• 88%+ of Operation Hope’s funding goes directly to programs, not overhead: “Donors do not want to pay...for you, John. They want to pay for what are we doing to actually change lives.” — Betts [62:59]

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Checks & Balances: The Power of ‘No’

• John’s leadership style: give the CFO real power to push back, even on the founder/CEO.
  • “Sometimes...he’ll say no about, like try to give an example. I’ll say I want to do X. And he’ll say, no, John, you, we really can’t do that. But I know what you’re trying to achieve, let’s do it this other way…” — Bryant [65:14]
• Separation of entities (nonprofit, LLCs) is vital. “You cannot blend these two together, that’s the best way to go to jail or get in trouble.” — Bryant [75:09]
• “My job is not to say no to John. It’s really to point out and make sure we have a complete picture before we move into something. So it really does have to be a partnership.” — Betts [73:34]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On financial discipline:
  • “Movements are actually survived because of systems, budgets and discipline.” — Bryant [69:31]
• On partnership:
  • “[The entrepreneur] needs a banker and an accountant…the chief financial officer is the financial architect, the financial modeler for the enterprise…the banker’s job is not just to say no, no, no…” — Bryant [67:11]
• On empowerment:
  • “You have to empower people to give you constructive criticism, otherwise they can’t help you. You just have a bunch of yes people…and you can get yourself in trouble.” — Bryant [78:11]
• On sustainable scaling:
  • “It doesn’t scale by accident. You’ve got to have those systems, you’ve got to have those partnerships.” — Betts [74:25]

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Key Takeaways & Practical Advice

For Entrepreneurs and Nonprofit Founders:

• Prepare: Don’t launch on passion or emotion alone—understand compliance, structure, and your obligations.
• Knowledge is power: Use nonprofit support organizations, boards, and continuing education.
• Keep it clean: Maintain strict separations between nonprofit and for-profit entities; avoid shortcuts with compliance.
• Build relationships (vendors, auditors, banks): They are strategic partners, not just service providers.
• Empower watchdogs: Let your CFO/chief financial person have authority to question and redirect the leader’s impulses when necessary.
• Embrace transparency: Assume everything could one day be on the front page.
• Focus on operational excellence: Success is not just vision, but execution—systems, controls, and reporting.
• Don’t confuse busyness with business: “Otherwise you’ll have busyness and not a real business.” — Bryant [68:35]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Topic | Timestamp | |---------|-------|-----------| | Setting the Stage | The Unseen Work of Success | 02:28 | | Brian’s Story | From Homelessness to Hope | 06:43 | | Why a CFO Runs Our Nonprofit | Merging Mission & Management | 10:27 | | Inside the Finance Department | Structure & Compliance | 21:12 | | Nonprofit "Double Books" | Cash, Accrual, and Restricted Assets | 27:07–31:48 | | The Value of In-Kind | Office Space & New Models | 34:49 | | Financial Statements 101 | Assets, Liabilities, Equity | 49:55 | | Managing Crisis | Audit Firm Walks, Relationships Matter | 53:53 | | Charity Navigator | What Makes a Great Nonprofit? | 60:52 | | Partnership & Saying ‘No’ | Healthy Leadership Dynamics | 65:02, 73:32 | | Final Takeaways | Advice for Founders | 75:56 |

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Final Reflections

• Make ‘smart’ sexy. Sustainability, transparency, and management backbone are true wealth builders.
• “Everybody should want to have somebody as smart as Brian Betts on their side as a ride or die partner. He’s making smart sexy. We’ve been making dumb sexy for way too long. We need to make smart sexy again.” — John Hope Bryant [79:26]

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Useful for anyone serious about building a business or nonprofit that lasts, this episode is as much master class as candid conversation—dispelling myths, explaining critical finance principles, and advocating for a partnership between visionary leaders and disciplined operators as the real path to generational wealth and impact.

Transcript

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[Brian Betts]

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[John Hope Bryant]

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[John Hope Bryant]

Welcome to Money and Wealth with John Hope Bryant, a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. And IHEARTRADIO hey, hey, hey, everybody. It's John Hope Bryant and this is Money and Wealth from the Black effect network on iHeartRadio, part of my season three of the Money and Wealth podcast series. And this is a very important and powerful episode because it gets you behind the curtain all too often. We see the hype, we see the press releases, we see some leader, whoever it is you admire going to red carpet events, going on a plane, in front of a plane, some people are flossing. I don't do that. Try not to do that. Showing off their baubles. I try not to do that either, or just in meetings or celebrating. But you very rarely see what has to happen behind the scenes for sustainable success, which is excellence in execution, excellence in operations and excellence in financial management. And so who is the man or woman in this particular case? A man. Sometimes it's a woman, by the way, behind the mission, who's running, in my case, a $75 million social impact enterprise. Our budgets go vacillates between 75 million and 50 million depending on what's going on in the society and the economy. Four and a half billion dollars invested. This is just Operation Hope. Bridegroop Ventures is my holding company and is a for profit leg and is a non profit leg. Most people know of my nonprofit work. By the way, there's a firewall up between those two entities and we'll talk about that maybe a little bit in this conversation. I literally have different team members for different operations because it's two legal bodies. The one who runs the biggest body, the one has grown the most over 30 years because I spend the most time there is Operation Hope. And the guy behind that is Brian Betts. I just recently published, he's my president and chief financial officer. Recently published a piece on Bryant Journal at Bryant Group Ventures website on our 12th consecutive four star charity navigator rating. It's like getting up. It's like having a triple bond, A rating, triple bond rating on, on a firm on Wall Street. It's the best rating you can get as a nonprofit. The guy behind that who makes that magic happen is the guy that you're seeing on the screen right now. You're about to hear from. If you're in your car, you're gardening, you're walking, you're running. Whatever you're doing, you need to stop and take notes or come back with a piece of pad or your iPad, your iPhone and grab a notepad with some friends because you're about to be schooled on what's behind the curtain of a vision made real. Brian Jensen, welcome to the money in your podcast.

[Brian Betts]

Thank you, sir. I'm excited to be here today.

[John Hope Bryant]

I love me some Brian Betts. He's a good man. President and chief financial officer of about 60% of everything I do, which is Operation Hope. Brian, that's a pretty weird title. President and chief financial officer. I haven't seen that many times. I don't know if I've ever seen it at all. But before we get into that combination and why that works for us and what does that mean, by the way, can you back up and tell the audience a little bit about what it is you did before you got to Operation Hope and what we just found out just a few minutes ago. Even though we and I have known each other for a long time, we just found out a moment ago about the common thread between your professional life and my personal life.

[Brian Betts]

Yeah, so you know, I started off in public accounting after I graduated with college, did the role at a large top six CPA firm, international CPA firm for a couple of years. That's usually what an accounting person aspires to, is go out and get that big public experience. And then went to work for corporate America for almost 15 years in various different roles and accounting and finance and strategic planning in different organizations. And you know, we've shared before that that just didn't fulfill me. You know, how could I take my skills and my talent and really get that other piece I was missing? A self sense of fulfillment. And then that's where I fell in love with non profits. Everybody's mission focused, everybody's here to make a difference in the world. And the people, the culture and the satisfaction you get from working for a nonprofit, I couldn't get anywhere else. And that is where I found my sweet spot. I always like to joke, I found my people. I finally found my people when I got into the nonprofit industries. But before I came to Operation Hope, I worked with a nonprofit that really focused on the problem of homelessness. And you and I were just briefly talking. But you know, the face of homelessness is usually most people think of the person on the street, under the bridges, under the overpasses. But that's just the chronic homelessness. Small percentage of the people that are actually homeless. There are so many more people that are living with friends, families and weekly hotels, couch surfing. There are so many more people that are unhoused than you can, you can really imagine that that problem just compounds itself. So after spending seven years and working in that industry, which I Loved helping the people. What I saw was how many people are on the verge of entering into a downward cycle of homelessness. So I always like to give the example. You have a single mother working a job. She gets a flat tire, she can't go to work, she can't afford to pay for the tire, she loses her job two weeks later, three weeks later, she can't pay her bills. Eventually she's going to get an eviction notice. Eventually she's going to lose housing. Maybe she can stay with family and friends. But once you get that eviction on your record, it's going to be a higher security deposit. If you can find somebody that's going to rent to you.

[John Hope Bryant]

Yeah.

[Brian Betts]

Then they may have a higher rent. It may not be in the location you want. There's just so many more challenges by having that eviction on your record that you start this downward spiral. Gets so expensive, so difficult financially to get out of. But then we're not even talking about the spiritual emotional impact to that individual, that family unit that they experience once they start that cycle. So we were talking before that you were sharing that you were homeless at one point and that's the common thread we were talking about. And yeah, I didn't, I pieced. I knew you were homeless and I knew I worked on homelessness, but I don't think we ever put the two pieces together.

[John Hope Bryant]

Yep. And what. And luckily I got out and you transitioned to, to my forever story. Why President and chief financial officer here at Operation Hope and why does that work? And what for the audience sake, right up front, what is a chief financial officer? They call it CFO in lingo. What does that mean? And how is that different from your role as president? So first of all, why president Chief financial officer?

[Brian Betts]

Okay, so you know, as a financial literacy organization, we have to set the example of living a very financially sound business model. So is if that is our main mission driver and representing and actually doing what we preach, making the CFO the president makes sense in this organization. You know, marry the two together. That is one of the most critical things you can do for a nonprofit. There are so many nonprofits doing fantastic work. Where they struggle is on the business side of making sure they don't overextend themselves. There's always going to be more need than you could ever address. So you have to treat it like a business. You know, non profits are still a business and you have to run it like a business if you want to continue to help people on a long term basis. Otherwise you're going to find yourself in like most like startups that struggle. If you don't have a sound financial model then you're not going to have a strong business model.

[John Hope Bryant]

So he just said something really important. I want to slow it down and repeat it. That a non profit is still a business and you've got to run it like a business. I'm gonna go one step further. A non profit is a corporation like any other corporation. You simply apply to the irs, the Internal Revenue Service for a nonprofit exemption. There are different kinds of exemptions. One's for foundations, one for academic institutions. There's a special exemption for churches. We have a 501C3 exemption. That is a programs and services based nonprofit versus a giving money nonprofit like a foundation but it's still a corporation. And versus the profits going to the shareholders, private investors and going in their pockets. Our profits go to our shareholders which is the community. The community is our shareholder and goes and is reinvested through programs and services in the community. A little known fact. Whereas a for profit company wants to retain as much earnings as possible and distribute it to its for profit shareholders, a nonprofit is judged by how much of the money goes to programs and services versus going to operations or held back and retained which one could argue as operations. So we have a very high program to expense ratio, administration expense ratio which is also compliments of Brian Betts leadership of about 88% or so. So 88, 87% of all of every dollar that comes in goes right out to programs and services helping people. And the rest of it is for useless things like me. We then also have reserves and we started an endowment and things like that. Maybe we'll have time to get into that. But he's the first thing he said is that you as a non profit in financial literacy we thought we had to over index on proper management. So the president in this case should also be really, in all fairness and really unfairness to Brian. He really has three roles. He has president. I didn't give him his third title. They want to freak him out, you know, president. He's really chief operating officer and chief financial officer. You really cannot be chief financial officer and president without actually also managing the operations because they all sort of elegantly work together. I'm founder, chairman of the board, the governance organization. Right. And chief executive officer which leads the management team. Those are three different roles, two different functions. Founder is not really a role. It's a role but not a function. Chairman of the board is a function, but it is separate in A part from management. Right. The board should not be managing the organization. And then management is what we're talking about in this particular role, in this particular conversation. I'm chief executive executive Officer. Brian is number two as president and chief financial officer. Okay, Brian, what does chief financial officer mean and who's on your team?

[Brian Betts]

So if we break out my role into two different areas, we'll just focus on the chief financial officer. So as chief Financial officer, you really have two different functions you're managing. One is your traditional accounting function. How do we capture activity, translate that into financial statements and provide those for public viewing or to banks for if you have a loan or to the sba, everybody's going to want to see your financial statements. So how do we record our activity? In accordance with all the standards and regulations and issue financial statements on a regular basis. That is one piece. But when you throw in the cfo, there's another piece that you've got to think about, and that's the finance function. And the finance function is really looking ahead to make sure you're not going to run off the road. Whereas accounting is traditionally looking back at a period of time. So with the CFO's role, he has to marry both. Looking back at history, making sure you're understanding how you got to where you are today, but you cannot neglect looking forward of where you think you're going. And traditionally that is really done in a world of what we call forecasting or projecting. Where are we projecting growth? Where are we projecting expenses to grow? How can we become more efficient? And you really have to partner with every function in the organization to understand what does the organization need to do continue to grow, scale and thrive. You've got to be partners with them. You've got to listen to what they need. You can't be the the role that always says no. You have to be the voice that says why. Let me understand and let me prioritize all the organization's needs in terms of importance. Because with any company, there's always limited funds and you want to invest in everything, but that's not always possible, possible. So you have to prioritize your investments in yourself and in the business.

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[John Hope Bryant]

who's on your team and what are their roles?

[Brian Betts]

Talking about Just the cfo.

[John Hope Bryant]

Yes, yes.

[Brian Betts]

So I have a senior Vice President of Accounting and Finance that manages a team of about six people. We have a staff accountant. We have an accounts payable person. Think of accounts payables. All the bills that come in have to be entered. We have to vet the vendors. We have to check their IRS, their tax IDs with the IRS to make sure we're not paying someone fraudulently. We've also got an accounting manager that does a lot of the close for the monthly financial statements. We also have a grants manager. If you're getting money from a federal government, state government, local government, you really should invest in a specific role that really does grant reporting. People that are investing money back into your organization to deliver on outcomes and impacts, they're going to want to see that you spent the money as well as provided the outcomes and impacts according to what you said you were going to do. So we also have payroll. You know, everybody loves to get paid. We've got to make sure everybody gets paid. But what you don't see behind the scenes, especially with Operation Hope, is we're in 42 states. Yep, that means 42 states. We have to file payroll taxes. We also have to file in some jurisdiction local payroll taxes. And you also have to file unemployment taxes. And you also have to make sure you're registered with the Secretary of State to do business in that state.

[John Hope Bryant]

Plus the federal stuff.

[Brian Betts]

Also register to solicit donations for a charitable organization. So there's a lot more behind the scenes from the compliance standpoint that you really got to make sure you're setting yourself up and, and adhering to all the regulations. There are some parishes and jurisdictions that have local payroll taxes on top of taxes. So you've got to really have a good handle on what all is required for you to physically be in a state and operate in that state. And then in the world we live in today, you've got to also understand what does it mean to provide services virtually into a state where you don't have fiscal presence. Are there any other regulations that require specific compliance issues there? So we've got a team that is small but mighty, but they handle a lot of that infrastructure to keep us in line with compliance because the last thing we want to do is end up on the news as a bad nonprofit that doesn't know how to run its business and not complying with federal laws and regulations.

[John Hope Bryant]

Particularly, particularly as a financial literacy nonprofit.

[Brian Betts]

Especially as a financial literacy non profit. So I think, you know, non profits overall get more scrutiny because, you know, donors have a lot of optionality of where to invest their resources into solving so many problems that we have in the world today. And you've got to be good stewards of that funding.

[John Hope Bryant]

So let's, let's back up a little bit. We've covered a lot of ground pretty quickly here. So you're saying that you have six team members. To be clear for the audience, we have hundreds of employees. But he's saying of those employees, six of them are just on his finance team, whereas there are another 300 plus 350 or something. Plus on his president's. Under his president's role. So we'll come back to that. On his chief financial officer role. A team of six. Explain, Brian, please, how finance is different from actuary. Like our audit. Let's be very specific. The audit function versus the finance function. Why that's. Those two things are important.

[Brian Betts]

Yeah. So with. When you hear the word audit, that is usually you can do it internally. You can, can internally audit your transactions.

[John Hope Bryant]

Why is an audit even important? Some people are listening is going, I don't need to do an audit. Who cares about that? Why is an audit. Why paying for an audit? We pay $70,000 or something less than my checkmates, more than that probably now because of our size for an annual audit. Why invest 70 grand, 50 grand if you're a small organization, 2 grand in an audit.

[Brian Betts]

So there's a couple of reasons that are like mandatory. So if you get over a million dollars in funding from a Federal government agency or multiple federal government agencies, you're required by law to have that audit done. If you get financing through a bank, whether that is a term loan, whether that's a line of credit, they're going to want audited financial statements. And then of course, like we were talking about earlier, our donors require a sense of validation. So an audit really is a third party coming into your organization and validating that your financial statements reflect what you're actually publishing. So it's all about trust, trust that, verify. So our audit partners look at our internal controls to make sure the process is working right. And then they'll validate the end numbers. So that requires confirmation from banks on what's sitting in the bank accounts, confirmation on your investments. Looking at if you bought any land, building, computer equipment, is it really on the balance sheet or should it belong on income statement? Also, they're very careful about revenue recognition. You know, when can you actually say you have revenue? Is it based off of a contract? Is it, did you book it in the period that you said that the contract states? Or did you book it too early or too late?

[John Hope Bryant]

So let's, let's slow down. Let's slow down. He's starting to talk. He's on talk lingo. So audience, he mentioned revenue. Revenue you would describe as income, right? And there's two types of income. There's cash income. I got the cash right now. And I, as he heard, you heard the phrase I booked it. Booked it means he put it on the balance sheet and the income statement. Now there's another kind of income, and it's accrual income. It's not cash right now. It's accrued income. It's revenue. But let's say somebody commits a million dollars to your organization over five years. They pay $200,000 today. That's cash income. They are going to give you $200,000 a year over the next four years for a total of five years to a total of million dollars. Now, all of that's income revenue. Some of it is cash. 200,000. You book that as cash. It goes on your income statement, in your balance sheet. Really through your balance sheet. He'll explain maybe what a balance sheet is and what does that mean? And the 800,000 is accrual income. And it shows up in a couple different places, interestingly enough, on your, in your financials. But for the sake of this, making this really simple at the moment, I gotta be careful. I say the following thing. Non profits are the only entity I'm aware Of that have what I call legal double books. Now you're gonna clip this. Anybody listening to us on social media, you're gonna clip this, clip the whole thing. Don't just say John Bryant says he's got double books. A non profit, any non profit, not Operation Hope has legal double books and meaning you have a cash register that says I got this money today or this year. You also have a cash register that says here's my cruel income. Cruel and cash income, which is a combination of all of my commitments to the organization, which also include things like in kind commitment. And maybe he'll get to that as well. Okay, let's back up. And once you drill as deep as you want, Brian, on anything I just said, you probably should go deeper on the cash versus accrual piece.

[Brian Betts]

Yeah, I don't think it's a conversation for today. But John, I would even challenge you that we've got three sets of books.

[John Hope Bryant]

Okay, go ahead.

[Brian Betts]

One like you said, cash basis. So really tracking what comes in the bank account and what goes out the bank account.

[John Hope Bryant]

Yep.

[Brian Betts]

That is your cash basis. That is how you're paying your bills and when you're getting paid. The accrual basis is what you were talking about saying. Okay, I've got a donor that's going to give me a million dollars paid out in cash over five years.

[John Hope Bryant]

Yep.

[Brian Betts]

So the cash set of books is only going to get 200,000. Oh, I know where you're going for the five years.

[John Hope Bryant]

Are you going to reimbursement? Go ahead.

[Brian Betts]

No, no, no, no. I'm going to throw another little wrinkle. Then you've got your accrual books. Gaap that followed Generally accepted accounting.

[John Hope Bryant]

Yep.

[Brian Betts]

Procedures.

[John Hope Bryant]

Principles.

[Brian Betts]

Principles, yeah. And that million dollars gets booked when they commit it. So you've got a timing book right

[John Hope Bryant]

away, right away, over time. Booked right away.

[Brian Betts]

Booked right away. There's a third set of books that we also track. We actually take that million dollars and then we'll break it out into financials equally over five years to see if we're break even or not and making sure we're still profitable. So it's in nonprofits, it's called without donor restrictions. And the with donor restrictions is the restricted balance that restricts the income based on certain either of time or you got to deliver a service or deliver a program. So you can restrict it over many different areas. But so I would say cash, you got to be able to bring money in to pay your bills. Accrual. That's what the banks, the financial Institutions restricted. Yep. Are going to look at. And then you want to make sure that you know in the year you're operating that you actually have enough revenue for 2026, tied to 2026 to pay the bills in 2026, even though they may have recorded. We may have recorded that revenue three years ago.

[John Hope Bryant]

Yes. And now you see, now you're going on that rabbit hole. We are. We should also mention probably that you have reimbursable revenue grants, which are weird. You've got to put the money out first through a line of credit or your own resources. And then these are typically government grants. And then they reimburse you. It's really weird. They reimburse you and it may take 30, 60, 90, 120 days. You got to put the money out, do the work, confirm you did the work, issue, report that you did the work, and then they reimburse you for the money you. You put out. And as part of that, you might get an allocation for overhead expense as part of that grant. That's your call. That your profit you also have in kind revenue. You might as well cover what that is, Brian, now that we're at it.

[Brian Betts]

Yeah. So I'll start with our model. Where we have the largest in kind activity that flows through our financials is that with our bank partners. A lot of them give us free office space inside of a bank branch.

[John Hope Bryant]

Yep.

[Brian Betts]

There's a retail value to that.

[John Hope Bryant]

Yep.

[Brian Betts]

What would Operation Hope pay?

[John Hope Bryant]

We're the only nonprofit in history ever allowed to operate inside of a bank branch in history, by the way, inside of an FDIC insured bank branch, which says a lot about Operation Hope, and that's through the FFIEC approval. The federal government joint regulatory agencies have allowed Operation Hope to do that since 2016 in written form, but really since 20, since 1992, informally. And at the state level, which is at the federal level, we have this federal approval, which again, northern nonprofit in history has ever had that. And that allows the banks to get CRA credit, community reinvestment credit for that through investment, lending and service. Back to you, Brian.

[Brian Betts]

Yeah. So there's a retail value for that office space that is donated for our use inside of a bank branch. So what the IRS has allowed or the accounting profession has allowed is don't. You can actually record that value of the free rent you got in your revenue, but then you also offset it in expenses as rent as well. So this really takes the concept of having to enter into an agreement with someone and actually change cash back and forth. So we Would not get a donation to pay for rent inside of that bank branch, Nor would we actually pay a rent payment back to them to lease the space. So it really just cuts down on administration and cash flow when they just donate access to the facilities that we have. Otherwise, we would have to pay rent somewhere to provide those services.

[John Hope Bryant]

I'm gonna put this in my. My phraseology versus Brian's elegance. There's two ways to make money. You make more, you spend less. And in this particular case of an in kind commitment, you're spending less with an in kind commitment tied to office space. We almost went broke several times, by the way, over 33 years. But I remember we had like, nine. I think this was before Brian got here with us. We had physical hope inside locations where, where we leased the location. We paid the lease rate, we paid the rent, we paid the utilities, we paid. I remember I got threatened to be sued by a janitorial company, A minority owned janitorial company in Harlem, because we hadn't paid the janitorial services for three months, and I hadn't gotten the money from the donor. And so I was waiting for the money for the donor to then pay the bills, but the local vendors didn't know I was waiting for that. And we didn't have the reputation that we have today. And so they were right to like, where's my money? And I was just trying to do the right thing by hiring local small businesses. I could have hired a major national sanitation, you know, maintenance company, and they would not have flinched at me not paying them for 60 to 90 days. This local company needed their money. Understandable so. Understandably so. They threatened to sue me and call me all kind of names. And I'm like, what?

[Ashley (Team Member)]

What?

[John Hope Bryant]

I'm not in the janitorial maintenance business. I'm not. And then I started looking at the lease payments, and we were upside down the lease, and we were late on all of our bills because the donor was. We had one major donor back then, and they were having their own challenges, and they were slowing down payments. Of course, that slowed us down. And I'm like, okay, I'm in the wrong business. And then I figured out, you know, nobody really wants to come to a building that says poverty solved here, essentially. And so I decided when this whole thing crashed and burned and the donor came to us and said, look, we'd like to change our relationship with you and just give you some money. And we don't want to do with a lot less money than what they were giving us. We don't want to do this. These hope insides anymore. I had this one major donor and I'll give them credit, actually it was e trade and for years they were fantastic. And I couldn't have survived. We couldn't survive without them. And they had, I don't know, 11 presidents in, in nine years or something. And the last two presidents were like, you know, we're having to restructure everything. And you're the first thing on my list.

[Ashley (Team Member)]

Right.

[John Hope Bryant]

And so. And they didn't have any branches. We were their branches. And this guy named Scott Wadley who's. Who's with. With another company now who was very helpful then and is even helpful now, this new firm relationships really matter. But anyway, that caused me. I remember calling of our team when they canceled that grant and it essentially put all of our offices out of business. And I said to my team, this is an opportunity. They thought I was crazy. I caught them all on Friday night. Brian and Lance and Mary and Rachel and all the folks, you know, Janae, we, we have to re. You know, let's figure out which of our model is working and let's get rid of everything that's not working. Give me an analysis. And they came back and said, well, there's one location that's paying for itself and it's a location for bank of the west, what was then bank of the West. Now it's. Who owns them now? I mean, because this was purchased, I think, I think it's be more Harris. I'm not sure. But anyway, bank of the west was in San Francisco. We had a branch in Oakland, Hope inside. And the CEO, Dom McGrath, God bless him, and Michael Shepard. Dom McGrath was like, I'm not giving any money. I'll pay. I'll put you in one of my little branches. It was a complete accident. I'll put you one of my branches that I'm building and I'll give you half the space. And you can collaborate with my team members around your no loan denial strategy, which is, I would basically say you're. As long as you do what we say, we won't deny you will approve you subject to the resolution of your primary denial factors. And the banker would send the bank client over to us to. When they thought the person might be declined, we would work on them because they worked for me, my employees worked for me, not the bank. And then send them back to the bank branch when they were ready so that that location was covered. Brian. The rents were covered, all the utility payments, everything was covered by the bank. Well, that was the only model that was self sustainable by accident I was upset because the guy didn't give me I wanted the money. I had the ghetto mentality, I had a hustler mentality, give me the cash. But they were, but it was actually a better deal for us because they covered all those expenses including the staff expenses and then they gave us a grant for ancillary services profit, our profit if you will. And so now we have 1500 locations, 300 plus of which are physical, Hope inside full time staff, then 1200 which are satellites like we're doing at Truist branch and Truist. We're doing this model with Truist, bank of America, Wells Fargo and others, First Horizon bank in in out of Tennessee and others. And and so this out of a bad thing came a good thing. A new model where we value and booked in kind revenue. We have a huge in kind commitment from partners like Shopify where this is stuff we would have had to pay for but they neutralize the cost for us. Meaning zeroed out like cost for licenses for Shopify accounts and other things that are worth tens of millions of dollars. So shout out to Shopify.

[Ashley (Team Member)]

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[Oppenheimer Advertiser]

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[Podcast Host]

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[John Hope Bryant]

Your bill, ladies. I got it. No, I got it. Seriously, I insist. I insisted first. Don't be silly.

[Podcast Host]

You don't be silly.

[John Hope Bryant]

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[Podcast Host]

Rock, paper, scissors for it.

[Brian Betts]

Rock, paper, scissors. Shoot.

[Oppenheimer Advertiser]

No.

[John Hope Bryant]

The Wells Fargo Active Cash credit card. Visit Wells Fargo.com ActiveCash Terms apply. All right, what did I cover there, Ryan, that you think needs additional clarity?

[Brian Betts]

I. You know, one thing I think non profits have to realize is that just because a donor can't write you a check does not mean they don't have something of value to you that they don't. And then that actually gets captured in your financial statements. So, you know, if they can't give you cash, cash is king. We all love cash. You heard John say he wanted the cash.

[John Hope Bryant]

Yep.

[Brian Betts]

But sometimes donating what they can provide, goods, services, rent is just as valuable or more valuable. Can you imagine, John, if we had to be landlords for all the locations that we're in now the administration part of that would be crippling to the organization.

[John Hope Bryant]

Well, we would have to have a physical. I hadn't thought about this, Brian. If we were covering the locations and all the expenses tied to it, we would have to have an annual budget right now of $125 million. Minimum. Minimum. Just to cover the load of locations in 42, 43 states, 350 physical locations. I mean my God, the leases in all the local red tape and the legal. We'd have to have a lawyer on staff full time and all that stuff.

[Brian Betts]

I don't want any get into, you know, occupancy, taxes and everything else that goes along with that. So it would be crippling for us to try to reach the scale we are at now and the scale we want to be at. If we were in the real estate business, we just, it would cripple us. So getting the donated office space has been a game changer for us. And you know, just because it wasn't check written to us doesn't mean it didn't have value.

[John Hope Bryant]

Didn't mean it exactly. Explain Brian. So a company is like a body. A company is a person in legal form. So explain to people how a company might have an asset that's also a liability. First time I saw this, it was really, really weird to me that an asset or something that comes in as an asset, either a physical asset or a grant also it could be a contingent liability. It shows up on your income statement and through your expense wash. And also the next thing, please explain what a balance sheet in an income statement actually is. But that first, this first question, how can something that's a positive also be an offsetting negative?

[Brian Betts]

Well, one of the things we have on our balance sheet that you'll find both in assets and liability is our child savings accounts. We put the cash that's in our bank, it's something we own, something that has value, we put that in an asset because it's a bank account, it's cash, it's a positive. But we also have to restrict it if a parent makes a donation to that account because it's the parents money that we're holding on to. But we're going to have to pay out for that kid when they graduate. So you can have cash in a bank account, but it might not be yours because you're just, you're the custodian of the funds but you've got a liability to pay that out at a certain date, time benchmark to someone else. So it's something that you owe, but it's something that you have.

[John Hope Bryant]

And how does that relate to a multi year grant for the audience?

[Brian Betts]

Yeah, so let's take some, some of our donors prepay. You know, we talked about a million dollars over five years and paying us $200,000 each year. Some of our donors say, I'm gonna give you a five year grant for a million dollars. Here's the million dollars up front. So you get a million dollars in cash, but you've also got liabilities for the next four years to spend that money to do work, to do the work and deliver on what you agreed to in terms of programs.

[John Hope Bryant]

So if you spend that million dollars when it comes in on hula hoops or dinners or whatever it is you want to do, and even if it was legal to do it, in other words, you weren't fluffing it off on personal stuff, but you were doing stuff that's legally allowed within the nonprofit. But it was not, It was not the contracted program work, but it was other things that you thought were important, but you spent it all on year one. You actually are in technical default on that grant obligation in years two, three, four and five. Isn't that right, Brian?

[Brian Betts]

That is if you don't deliver on it, get the money from somewhere else. So they've given you a million dollars to be the custodian, a trustee of the funds to spend that in the outline that you've agreed on in your contract. So you know, you've got to be able to commit and deliver on that multi year contract regardless if they pay you at the beginning, equal installments over the year or you know, cost reimbursable after the fact backed after you've already spent the money. So the donors will come calling and you gotta adhere to those contracts regardless of when the cash hits your bank account.

[John Hope Bryant]

Mission without management means the whole vision collapses. Explain the, the, the, the skeleton, the bones, the, the skin, the mouth. The mouth is me. The skin is, is my hope coaches and all that stuff. And the heartbeat maybe is our special forces team, the management team, the skeletal bones, the fascia tissue and the skeletal bones and the ligaments that beat the muscle and maybe even part of the muscle too is balance sheet income and expense statement, et cetera. Explain please, Brian, for the audience. I don't know. I don't know if anybody's ever explained to people what these things are. People assume and presume that folks understand it and I don't know why anybody should. You never get this information from anybody. What does this mean?

[Brian Betts]

So in simplistic terms, a balance sheet has three components. You have an asset and an asset is something of value that's got your name on it that you own. So whether that's a bank account account, whether that's a building, whether that's a receivable, somebody owes you money, that is something of value to you that you book as an asset. On the opposite side, you have all your bills that you've got to pay. So think about your loans are on the liability side. Think about your accounts payable, all your vendors, like you were talking about your janitorial service. Those are things you owe to people, right? So you take your assets and you subtract out what you owe other people and that in the corporation world is your equity. What is the business actually worth? What is the leftover? So what do I have in my hand that is valuable? What? Take out what I owe other people and then what's left is your equity or your net assets. In a non profit world. So there's three components. That's why the balance sheet's so important. It's like, is your value, who do you owe? What's left over that.

[John Hope Bryant]

If, if you are telling others to watch this or listen to this podcast, they should go to that 2 minute, 3 minute segment where he breaks down balance sheet income and expense and really play it several times because you can get into a lot of trouble not understanding that it's the skeleton that gives you the structure and the integrity to hang the muscle. The heartbeat, the blood flow, the skin, the look, the clothes, the feel, the mouth, the vision, all that has to ride on a very solid skeleton or yours, your cocktus, and that's French, you can figure that out for yourself. Cactus. All right, Brian, you and I met, were introduced in a crisis, and let's unpack that a bit because rainbows only follow storms. You learn a lot about somebody, about how they manage tough times. And I called Brian without getting into the background, it's not important. We were having a management change in the middle of a crisis. And I remember I was in New York City in a hotel room, middle of the late afternoon, preparing to go to the airport. We had emergency meetings of this or that. And the other thing, we had a management change. Certain people were not there anymore. I couldn't, I couldn't. Didn't want to call, you know, certain folks that get, get answers. I wanted to call the money man. So you and I really had just met and I called you and you is my. One of our first conversations. And we also had a situation where the audit firm, the prior audit firm, as I recall, had quit in the midst of all of this. If we had government grants and private grants that we had to report on and we were in the middle of an audit and we had to get a new audit firm, and you went and got the new audit firm while you're managing the crisis of the old audit firm, like herding cats or you know, you know, juggling, you know, like rearranging the deck chairs of the Titanic, unpack that period for the audience so they can understand how to manage in a crisis. And you gave me confidence, by the way, that it was going to be handled by it telling me everything. The good news, the bad news, the warts and everything in between.

[Brian Betts]

Yeah. It's funny now thinking about it. I think I've been here six, seven months at that time. Yeah. And all of this had blown up. We did meet during the interview process, but yes, we had not worked closely together. There were a couple of layers of management between us. But yeah. So our prior audit firm, we had some disagreements of the accounting treatment for certain transactions of historically what they wanted to see versus what I thought was founded in true statements and guidelines. And so instead of restating the prior year, they decided they just didn't want to issue new financials. So they quit. And then when they quit, this was, I think late September and we had to get our financials to the Federal Clearinghouse, and that was by 9:30. So we had a couple of days. We thought we were done. We thought we were getting a report at the last minute. No, not only are we not getting a report, we're leaving you. We're not even going. It's going to quit. Walk away. Hindsight, best thing that could have happened. You know, things happen for a reason. But what I did at that point was pulled on relationships. Who do I know in this world that owns an audit firm that trust me to say this is not a bad thing because the auditor fired us. This was just a disagreement. Let me walk you through my logic and my justification for why we ended up where we were and was able to secure an audit firm based on a relationship because a better audit firm, better audit firm based on prior relationships, they know I knew what I was talking about in terms of getting the financials ready for an audit and decided, yeah, we'll take you on as a client. So I literally dropped everything the day that we got fired. Got in my car, I called the audit firm partner and I was like, hey, you can see You. He's like, well, you know, you want to talk about it on the phone? It's like, no, no, I need to

[John Hope Bryant]

come see you on this one. I need to be right in your. In your face.

[Brian Betts]

I need to see you face to face. This is not. This was before Zoom. So this was just telephone. I was like, no, this ain't gonna work. We're gonna have to get in the. Across the desk from each other and have a conversation.

[John Hope Bryant]

So I drove a decade ago about something like that.

[Brian Betts]

Yeah, I drove 30 minutes to their office and sat down and explained everything, but we were able to get through that. But, John, you know, what I learned is you've got to have relationships with all of your vendors, audit firms, all of those things are. They're all based on relationships. They trusted what I had done in the past to feel comfortable engaging with us on an audit, but they still did the audit. They've got to verify. They've still got to go through the process. But we wouldn't have gotten to that stage without trust. And that trust is based on personal relationship capital. As you talk about a lot. Don't think of your vendors just as vendors. They're your partners.

[John Hope Bryant]

That's right.

[Brian Betts]

They should be viewed as a partner. They provide value to your organization. If they don't, you've got the wrong

[John Hope Bryant]

vendors and we fail forward. We went from a local audit firm we had been with since we were founded in 1992 in Los Angeles, where the partners had changed. The people that changed. No one knew us anymore. We had moved into Atlanta. I didn't know the people anymore. No one knew the people at the. That auto firm anymore. Accounting firm. And they had no. They had no. They were getting a discounted fee to do the work. They just were not motivated to do it. And I thought they wanted out. And Brian had a different view of the world than they did. Let me rephrase that. They had a different view of the world than the truth. And so two things. So you can have professionals that have two different views and sometimes irrationalize is tell rational lies. They wanted out. They wanted to go, and they were trying to create reasons to go. And I don't know whether they were trying to hurt us or not, but what they originally went from. We have a disagreement. We have some questions. Then you can have what's called a material. You can have a material disagreement, which is not good, which means that we don't trust. We think there's a problem with the financials themselves. The material. What. What do they call that? In accounting terms, it's material weakness.

[Brian Betts]

Material weakness and a misstatement. Yep.

[John Hope Bryant]

Right. They wanted to restate the financials, which we might have gone along with, but then they just quit. So Brian's like, no, you guys don't understand what you're doing and you're not seeing this properly. And he was able to go to a much larger, much more prestigious firm, much more sophisticated, who said, oh, yeah, we get this, we understand this, and this is what know. Anyway, blah, blah, blah, the rest is history. But that could have killed us. I mean, that moment could have been the death of us if we didn't handle that properly. And it's been over 30 years before Brian got to us. 33 years. There's been many moments. I had a. I had a president 25 years ago who stole. I think it was seven. I forget it was 7,000, 20,000 something. It was a lot of money at that time for us. And I remember he came and cried on my couch and I'm like, what are you crying for? You're the one who took the money. He defrauded us. And it was hard to catch a fraud because he wrote the checks right back in the days where everything was, was a written check. And I think he had gone to one of my board members and said we were going bankrupt. It is 25, 30 years ago. And the board member called me, he's like, john, I think you need to get rid of this guy. He just showed up going bankrupt. He's going to be a president. We had an account. We had a bookkeeper 30 years ago. Thirty years ago, Brian, who did not have a bank account. The bookkeeper I was trying to, I was trying to hire from the community

[Brian Betts]

down. Your heart could get you in trouble sometimes.

[John Hope Bryant]

Like, don't, don't. I tell people, don't get emotional about your business. Do not make emotional decisions. It was completely emotional. I met this guy, he was so impressive. And I was, I had a heart for people and. Yeah, we'll hire him. Hire him. You know, it was Rachel, hire him. Put them in the accounting department. Right? And we found out later, very nice guy. He never made a mistake, actually, but did not have a bank account. Okay, you couldn't. Okay, bye. Sorry. So many, so many stories over the years and. But let's sort of go to the end now. Television tell the audience where we are now from a fiscal health perspective and why this charity, Navigator 4 star rating matters so much. And as we begin to wrap up, what are five or ten really important things that the Audience needs to think about as they're growing an enterprise. And how do you work with a crazy person like me, an entrepreneur like me, with my hair on fire, who is always about growth and new things and new partnerships. How do you keep up?

[Brian Betts]

Some days from the back office. Yeah. But you know, I'm really proud of what we've accomplished here at Operation Hope. Charity Navigator is a third party independent organization that actually takes everybody, all nonprofits, tax returns which are publicly available and they actually rate the organizations on terms of financial health. Are you a healthy organization? But they also look at your transparency. Are you really opening up and letting donors, investors, whatever you've got, see the true picture of what's going on, good, bad and ugly. Are you showing the truth? So for 12 consecutive years we have gotten a four star rating, which is the highest rating you can get with Charity Navigator on accountability and transparency. This last, I think the last two ratings were perfect scores of 100 in both categories. So what?

[John Hope Bryant]

Very few minority led nonprofits can claim that.

[Brian Betts]

I think we're the last. They stopped giving me statistics on how many nonprofits actually had that track record of consecutive four stars. I think it was either in year nine or year ten. But we were in the top 7% of all nonprofits in the US of

[John Hope Bryant]

all in the country. A million and a half nonprofits.

[Brian Betts]

A million. You're talking about American Cancer Society, Goodwill, United Way, American Red Cross, big, big organizations. And we're in the top 7% making sure that we are consistently transparent and financially healthy. You know, we talked a little bit about program expenses, making sure that our all of our donations are going to providing a impacts to the communities that we serve. You know, you may hear these commercials on the radio. 88 cents or 90 cents of every dollar goes to supporting animal in our care for the American Humane Society. It's really important because donors do not want to pay. John, you may not like this want to pay for you. They want to pay for what are we doing to actually change lives.

[John Hope Bryant]

That's right.

[Brian Betts]

You're not changing lives, but I got you. They don't want to give, you know, 100 if $50 is going to be blown on a Christmas party. You know, they want to see change in the community. So the Charity Navigator is very important to us. And it's.

[John Hope Bryant]

Which is why, by the way, for the audience and anybody running an operation, I don't have an expense account, okay. I have an expense report. There's so much that getting into this, Brian, is so much. This almost could be a Series. I don't have an expense account. I have an expense report. An expense report means I put it on my credit card, expense account is, goes on the organization's credit card and I'm even given a budget or something. I think there's really a prescription for waste if you have expense account cards just willy nilly running around. And I think a lot of fraud happens that way. Expense report is I put it on my credit card, then I issue an expense reimbursement request and I've got to justify why I made that expense. And by the way, while you're at it, while you're answering these questions, Brian, you might as well tell the audience how often you tell me no on whatever it is and, and why I have to empower you to tell me no even though I'm technically your boss.

[Brian Betts]

Well, we always joke we want everything we do to be looked through the lens of was it published on the front page of the newspaper paper or the opening segment?

[John Hope Bryant]

You never want to do anything you don't want to see on the front page of the New York Times in five years. You want everything you do to be transparent and you comfortable and cool with whatever it is.

[Brian Betts]

So if John submits an expense reimbursement report and something's on there, could it be a business expense? Yes. Could it be a legal expense? Yes. But would it pass the muster of some, someone from the external going, is that the best use of donors funds?

[John Hope Bryant]

And then sometimes, sometimes I make a mistake. Sometimes my team will put a personal expense on that they didn't mean to, you know, from a different card. Yeah.

[Brian Betts]

Yeah. So there's various reasons why I kind of push back sometimes. But most of the time, John, I'm just trying to build the justification in case I get questioned on our financials, that I understand what's in them.

[John Hope Bryant]

But sometimes he says, I mean it's not just about expense reports. Sometimes he'll say no about, like try to give an example. I'll say I want to do X. And he'll say, no, John, you, we really can't do that. But he'll say, but I know what you're trying to achieve. Let's do it this other way because that's more appropriate. Like, you know, we may want to make a donation or maybe want to make a. But there's no budget for this particular thing. Or there's no, you know, but we have an entity called Hope Ventures and we, we invested, this is a real life example. We invested in a company, $25,000 in. The black coffee company. And however I was going to do it, there was no budget for it. It wasn't really the cleanest way to go about it, even though it was completely appropriate in line with our mission. But Hope Ventures, that's exactly what Hope Ventures was set up to do. And so Brian's job was, they know we're not doing it that way. We can do it. We have the money, we have the resources. We're within budget, but we should do it. That. We didn't talk about budgets. What does that mean? We made it. Come back and do it.

[Brian Betts]

We didn't talk about legal entities because Operation Hope is the umbrella company. We do have Hope Ventures, which is a LLC that's 100% owned by operation Hope, but it's a single. A separate legal entity. We had one for our properties that was a separate llc.

[John Hope Bryant]

Advisors.

[Brian Betts]

Advisors. So you can create

[John Hope Bryant]

global forums, you

[Brian Betts]

can create legal structures to accomplish what you're trying to do. But then you've got to understand what activity can be under which entity and which one falls in the best. Where me and John were talking about the black coffee investment, I was like, yeah, that really been on the nonprofit arm, used to be in our Hope Ventures entity, to make that investment and be an equity holder in that company.

[John Hope Bryant]

So, audience, hear this. The entrepreneur is. Is really important, but the entrepreneur needs a banker and an accountant, a financial officer, chief financial. So the chief financial officer is the financial architect, the financial modeler for the. For the enterprise. The entrepreneur is the driver, the hunter, the builder. Right. And I keep saying every organization has to have a hunter, a Skinner, and a cook. Lance Triggs is part of the is. Well, a lot of our folks are doing the cooking, delivering the product to the audience. The analysts are a lot of folks. Rachel Duff, chief of staff. Bill Fairy, Tina Fair, Deborah Collins, Latoya Hall, Sir James Buchanan. There's a whole bunch of folks, his accounting. Michael Smith. There's a lot of people in the engine room who are the Skinners. And. And I'm. I'm the. I'm clearly the hunter. And Brian's probably the chief Skinner. Brian Best, the chief Skinner. We haven't talked about budgets. You got to have a budget. You got to stay within it. We talked a little bit about what goes in a budget and the kinds of revenue. We talked a little bit about liabilities. I think we covered, generally speaking. Really, you had the boss. So the banker and the accountant and others keeps the entrepreneur on the road. The entrepreneur is going so fast. The entrepreneur can run off the road run into a ditch. So the banker's job is not just to say no, no, no, no, no, or the accountant. Because you need that entrepreneur growing without growth. The entrepreneurs, there's nothing for the baker and the accountant and the auditor and the auditors to fuss about, right? So the entrepreneur needs the guardrails of the of the protectors of these roles of accounting and finance. Likewise, accounting and finance, legal, etc. Needs the fuel. A guy like me or a woman, an entrepreneur who's hunting every day, who's going don't do one, do both. Otherwise you'll have busyness and not a real business. Most people think that movements are built on passion and speeches. But movements are actually survived because of systems, budgets and discipline. And Brian Bett runs the operational engine behind Operation Hope. Today we are talking about but what's behind the curtain and how the mission actually works in a real tangible way. We run it like a business.

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[Jacob Goldstein]

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[Podcast Host]

So good.

[John Hope Bryant]

Your bill, ladies. I got it. No, I got it.

[Podcast Host]

Seriously, I insist.

[John Hope Bryant]

I insisted first.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, don't be silly. You don't be silly.

[John Hope Bryant]

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[Podcast Host]

Okay. Rock, paper, scissors for it.

[Brian Betts]

Rock, paper, scissors. Shoot.

[John Hope Bryant]

No, the Wells Fargo Active Cash credit card. Visit Wells Fargo.com ActiveCash terms apply. Brian, as we wrap up, is there anything we could have gone on for another hour? Ashley, is there anything. Yeah. Is there anything you want to cover that we haven't.

[Ashley (Team Member)]

No.

[Brian Betts]

I mean, I'd like to make a quick statement about what you said is that you've got to have that dreamer, that entrepreneurial mindset to really look at future possibilities. Where I see my role is really protecting you, to make sure you're making the best decisions with all the information. So pointing out risk, just, just because you have a risk doesn't mean we're not going to do something. But we need to be aware of

[John Hope Bryant]

it and we need to understand it.

[Brian Betts]

So, you know, my job is not to say no to John. It's really to point out and make sure we have a complete, complete picture before we move into something. So it really does have to be a partnership.

[John Hope Bryant]

But sometimes he does say no, which is Fine.

[Brian Betts]

I won't do it anyway.

[John Hope Bryant]

He protects me, protects the organization. Yeah, yeah.

[Brian Betts]

But it really has to be that partnership. So, you know, when you're looking at those two roles, they don't conflict with each other. They have to work together. Because like you said, one without the other does not make a healthy organization.

[John Hope Bryant]

And then you've got the board of directors, which Brian also deals, which is a governance role. And Brian has a manage between operations, executive branch, me and governance. He's got a. He's got to work. And then the outside vendors like the audit firm and accounting firm, which may be different firms sometimes, and others to make and legal. All these things is like herding cats.

[Brian Betts]

And all we're trying to do, John, on a daily basis is deliver on our mission. So, yes, we think about real impact. It doesn't scale by accident. You've got to have those systems, you've got to have those partnerships. And then we didn't even get into. You've got to have people that deeply believe in the mission. I'm excited to say that, you know, Operation Hope just received an award for top workplace for a nonprofit. So that means our happy, our employees are engaged. They believe in organization. They're being fulfilled here. So we've got Charity Navigator on fiscal and transparency. We've got our employees recognizing us as a top workplace. We've got our partners that continue to invest in us because we deliver on our promises.

[John Hope Bryant]

Atlanta Business Chronicle keeps recognizing us one of the biggest nonprofits in all of Atlanta. And we're the largest, I think, black male nonprofit in U.S. history. And there's a lot of firsts. And I think we're just, we've only just begun now, adding Hope AI to our work around financial literacy. Are there any takeaways that you have for the audience? Any recommendations for founders, entrepreneurs, dreamers out there? Nonprofit people trying to run a nonprofit. Want to run a nonprofit. Want to run a for profit plus a nonprofit. People see me, I think it's easy to do both. It's not easy and it's expensive to have separate infrastructure. But you must, you cannot blend these two together. That's the best way to go to jail or get in trouble. Any suggestions you have as we wrap this up in general?

[Brian Betts]

Yeah. I mean, I think you've got to prepare. You can't go into it based on motion. You can't go into it without knowledge. There are so many organizations out there here in Georgia. We've got the Georgia center for Nonprofits that will give you training on how to Create a nonprofit, how to manage a board, how to, you know, financial statements for non financial people so that you understand every aspect of it. So I would encourage you to get connected to all of these resources, fully understand what you're getting yourself into. Because this sounds great. I'm going to start a non profit to do X. But do you really understand what it's going to take from a compliance standpoint, a framework standpoint? It may be a great idea, but I always want to get everybody knowledge before they get into it because it is so hard to get off the rails and we want to make sure all of our companies succeed. So let's make sure we give you the infrastructure and the knowledge to do that.

[John Hope Bryant]

I love me some Brian Betts and

[Brian Betts]

I trust John Hope.

[John Hope Bryant]

This is a brilliant dude and I'm glad that I'm able to let the audience see and hear who he is. He doesn't get credit for all that. He does. I love him so much. I made him part of the historic founding Special Forces team and the Ride or Die Special Forces team, my key group of leaders. And when I sold one of my companies a few years ago, you guys can watch this video. One of the people who I surprised, who he didn't know was getting anything was I guess gave everybody a new car. A car and plus some cash investment. Cash, whatever. And I surprised Brian with a car which I think was his dream car. And he hasn't sold it. I think he actually likes it. But that's what I was able to do that in my for profit world, to help people in my nonprofit world. But that's, that's how much I treasure this guy. He really treats operation like it's his, his own. He treats me like I'm family. Which means sometimes you have to tell family, let's do something this way versus that way. You have to empower people to give you constructive criticism, otherwise they can't help you. You just have a bunch of yes people around you and they're going to get you into trouble. You can get yourself in trouble because you don't know everything. You may be smart, but it's what you don't know that you don't know and you think you know. So Brian, thank you very much. Great job you're doing. I think we need to have you back. I think there's so much ground we didn't cover.

[Podcast Host]

Cover.

[John Hope Bryant]

Once you think about Brian, all the stuff we didn't cover, I'd wonder, gee, it's gonna. I hope we can get, you know, 45 minutes or an hour. This is like we've run out of time and there's so much more. So think about all the stuff we didn't cover that we should cover the next time. And the audience go in the comments when you see outtakes on social media and say, can you please address X, Y and Z? Because there's some things that Brian and I may might just assume that you know, and we, we're, we don't shake tells me all the time. John, you got to make this simple. Don't assume that people know X, Y and Z. Brian, last word from you.

[Brian Betts]

Now. I'd be more than excited to come back and talk to your viewers and listeners and it's just been a real pleasure. You know, I enjoy my work here at Operation Hope knowing that we're changing lives on a daily basis, not just giving a hand out, but giving a hand up and empowering them with dignity. And that's something you can't take away as your dignity.

[John Hope Bryant]

Amen. Everybody should want to have somebody as smart as Brian Betts on on their side as a ride or die partner. He's making smart sexy. We've been making dumb sexy for way too long. We need to make smart sexy again. Ladies and gentlemen, this is money and wealth on the Black effect network on iHeartRadio. And this has been Brian Betts in conversation with me, president and chief financial officer. We didn't talk about what the presidency mean. So much stuff of Operation Hope and what's behind the curtain of Hope. What how it is a mission made real through management, money and wealth with John O. Bryant a is of the production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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[Podcast Host]

Guaranteed human.