There is a statistic I carry with me everywhere I go — into boardrooms and classrooms, into city halls and community centers. It comes from researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, and it is as simple as it is powerful: a child with a savings account in their name — regardless of the dollar amount — is six times more likely to attend college than a child with no account. Six times. Not because of the money itself. Because of the message the money sends. It says: someone believes in your future.
That is the whole thesis behind what we are doing in Atlanta.
Today, through our HOPE Savings Accounts initiative — a partnership between Operation HOPE, Inc., Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and the City of Atlanta City Council, and Atlanta Public Schools — approximately 12,000 APS kindergartners have received a free savings account seeded with an initial deposit. Twelve thousand children. Twelve thousand statements of belief. Twelve thousand stakes planted in the ground that say: your future matters, and we are investing in it before you can even spell the word “investment.”
I want to be clear about something — this did not happen by accident. This happened because of leadership. And that leadership deserves to be named.
This program was born under the vision of Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who in 2021 made a bold and historic commitment: she directed $2 million in city resources — made possible by community incentives negotiated during the Centennial Yards redevelopment — toward the creation of a child savings account program for Atlanta’s kindergartners. Mayor Bottoms understood something that too many leaders overlook: that the most powerful investment a city can make is the one it makes before a child ever falls behind. She planted the first seed, and I will always be grateful for that.
When my friend Mayor Andre Dickens took office, he did not let that seed sit dormant. He watered it. He expanded it. He reaffirmed the city’s commitment in 2023 as part of his “Year of the Youth” — a comprehensive effort to invest in the next generation of Atlantans through early childhood education, youth employment, scholarships, and the continued growth of the HOPE Savings Accounts. What Mayor Bottoms started, Mayor Dickens scaled and made his own. That is what continuity of leadership looks like — not partisan, not political, but purposeful. Two mayors, one mission: invest in Atlanta’s children. Mayor Dickens has shown what it means to lead with vision and heart, and by investing in financial literacy and real-world resources for Atlanta’s youngest residents, he is laying the groundwork for generational opportunity. That is not rhetoric. That is policy. And I am grateful for it.
The Atlanta City Council deserves enormous credit as well — across both administrations. This program exists because the Council had the foresight and the courage to direct real money toward real futures. That is the kind of governance that changes the trajectory of a community.
And Dr. Bryan Johnson, the Superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools, has been a tremendous partner in this work. Dr. Johnson is a leader who understands that education and economic empowerment are not separate conversations — they are the same conversation. His “Back to the Basics” vision for APS, with its focus on literacy, math, and college readiness, is the perfect complement to what we are building through HOPE Savings Accounts. When we celebrated the milestone of opening our 10,000th account at Tuskegee Airmen Global Academy on Green Socks Day last year, Dr. Johnson was right there with us — because he gets it. This is about preparing students not just for graduation, but for what comes after.
Let me tell you why this matters in language that goes beyond education policy.
We know from the research — not opinion, but peer-reviewed, longitudinal research — that low- and moderate-income children who have even a small amount of savings designated for school are three to four times more likely to enroll in college and roughly five times more likely to graduate. We know from Oklahoma’s SEED OK study that children who had savings accounts opened for them as newborns showed improved social-emotional development comparable to the gains produced by Head Start programs. We know from a U.S. Government Accountability Office report that families enrolled in child savings programs had approximately six times more total savings than non-enrolled families.
The money matters. But what matters more is the mindset. A savings account in a child’s name changes the internal narrative. It shifts the family conversation from if to when. It turns college and career preparation from an abstraction into a plan. As I have said for years: you cannot be what you cannot see. But you can start to see yourself differently when someone — your city, your school system, your community — has literally put something in the bank on your behalf.
This is what I mean when I say that financial literacy is the new civil rights issue of this generation. The civil rights movement gave us access — to lunch counters, voting booths, public accommodations. But access without capital is just another form of waiting. HOPE Savings Accounts are about capital. Not just financial capital, but aspirational capital. The kind that says to a five-year-old: you are not behind. You are already on your way.
I am proud that Atlanta is leading on this. Atlanta has always been the city that shows the rest of the country what is possible when Black and brown communities are invested in rather than talked about. And now, through Operation HOPE, Inc., this model is expanding. We recently launched a similar program — Aurora’s Promise — in Aurora, Illinois, in partnership with that city’s leadership, bringing HOPE Savings Accounts to a new generation of kindergartners in the Midwest. More cities are coming. The blueprint is written. Atlanta wrote it.
But I want to end where I started: with the children. Because at the end of the day, this is not about programs or press releases or policy papers. It is about a five-year-old sitting in a kindergarten classroom at a Title I school in Atlanta who now has something she did not have before — not just $50 in a savings account, but a reason to believe that the system is working for her. That someone cared enough to plant a seed before she even knew she needed one.
Twelve thousand seeds planted. And every single one of them is going to grow.
To Mayor Bottoms for the vision. To Mayor Dickens for the expansion. To the Atlanta City Council for the investment. To Dr. Bryan Johnson for the partnership. And to every funder, volunteer, and family who has made this possible — thank you. You are proving that when we invest in our children, we are investing in everything.
Let’s go.
John Hope Bryant — founder of Bryant Group Ventures, Operation HOPE, Inc, publisher of the Bryant Journal and author of his 7th book Capitalism for All: Inclusive Economics and the Future Proofing of America, now a bestseller. Bryant was recently named a member of the Forbes 250.
