Gwinnett Coalition Announces New Strategic Approach and Brand

After thirty years, The Gwinnett Coalition is entering a new era with an updated approach to addressing Gwinnett County’s most complex issues. Renée Byrd-Lewis, a 26-year community leader in Gwinnett County, took the helm as President and CEO in October 2020. “Gwinnett has changed greatly since the Coalition’s founding in 1991 when we were a rural community of 356,000 residents. Today, we are nearly one million strong - a mosaic of individuals who hail from every corner of the world and represent a variety of cultures, languages, and belief systems. How we approach the well-being of all residents must also evolve,” says Byrd-Lewis.

The Gwinnett Coalition is setting a new standard for community development. This new standard involves a systems-view with effective cross-sector collaboration to solve the community’s most complex problems. Byrd-Lewis credits Gwinnett agencies who offer extraordinary services and programs serving those in need, but “a more holistic view of individuals and families, as well as the service delivery systems that serve them, will allow individual agencies, nonprofits, and businesses to work together on the same issues, increasing efficiency and yielding greater positive impact throughout the community. Our new brand reflects our commitment to moving the needle on big problems and creating lasting change. Most importantly, it supports our vision that all residents have the opportunity to thrive.”

With the new strategy, the Coalition will utilize a collective impact approach, a proven and effective method for achieving social change. Unlike other approaches to collaboration, collective impact is defined by long-term alignment around sound data and a common agenda that seeks to address root causes of a systemic problem. It involves not just solving immediate problems but putting systems in place that break cycles and ultimately prevent them. While more complicated and lengthier in nature, the systems-change approach produces more reliable improvements in outcomes and does so in a sustainable way.

For the past nine months, the Coalition has taken significant steps to transition its organizational structure to support the new business model. In addition to upgrading information technology and communications infrastructure, the Coalition recently welcomed Dr. Teresa Raetz as Chief Operating Officer and Kem Hobbs as Director, Program and Grant Management and promoted Lecia Young to Program and Events Manager. Marketing and communications, finance and accounting, and data analysis functions are outsourced to local subject matter experts.

The Coalition also completed another top priority of updating the Coalition brand to reflect its role in leading community development. Byrd-Lewis shares, “We are grateful to long-time partner, Rock Paper Scissors, who led our Board of Directors and staff through a creative process of re-envisioning all aspects of the brand.” Amanda Sutt, Creative Director and CEO of Rock Paper Scissors remarks, “We are proud to launch the updated brand and complete redesign of the website. It is fresh, distinct and features the brand attributes: impactful, innovative, inclusive, present, and empowering. They support the organization’s role in and commitment to future community development.”

To see the new branding and learn more about the work of the Gwinnett Coalition and how you can engage, visit www.gwinnettcoalition.org.