Key Points 

Election day has come and gone, and we still have many unanswered questions about the leadership of our country. The full results of the midterms are still to be decided. What’s clear is that Georgia will once again play a key role in the results, with a runoff in the U.S. Senate campaign scheduled for Dec. 6. Once more, our state will have to endure a barrage of political ads as the nation watches to see what the results will be.

While questions are sure to persist in the days and weeks to come as we resolve political leadership, one thing hasn’t changed — the need to expand opportunity. While who holds the reins of power in Washington and Atlanta does matter, ultimately it’s in local communities where the true change happens that leads to human flourishing.

As for us at the Georgia Center for Opportunity, we are ready to take on big challenges as we close out the year and move into the next. Our community-based work of connecting people to work, education, and family training resources is still at the heart of what we do. But we also see opportunities to impact our neighbors for good in a few key policy areas. We’re focused on:

• Education: With a better understanding of who will be leading in our state, we see a great opportunity to expand educational freedom in Georgia in 2023. This battle has lasted a long time but the nearly 500,000 kids in failing Georgia schools need us to step in and demand change.

   

• Work: We also see opportunities to radically change the policies that trap people in generational cycles of government dependency. Our goal is to help thousands more of our neighbors move into work and the joy of accomplishment and pride that comes with it.

   

• Family: We hope to seize the opportunity to address the penalties that are discouraging marriage in low-income communities, creating a system that destabilizes families and the support they bring to us all. 

“While who holds the reins of power in Washington and Atlanta does matter, ultimately it’s in local communities where the true change happens that leads to human flourishing.”

“While who holds the reins of power in Washington and Atlanta does matter, ultimately it’s in local communities where the true change happens that leads to human flourishing.”

Policy does matter, but real change happens in our neighborhoods and communities where real life happens. It’s in communities where we first learn to love, trust, and experience sacrifice on behalf of something beyond ourselves. And it’s in communities where we find the answers to our most pressing problems. Regardless of who leads our state and federal government, that truth will never change.