Creating Change Through Civic Journalism
Photo by Hannah Jones, Atlanta Civic Circle
Britton Edwards:
By Sara Baxter
I 16
n summer 2018, Britton Edwards, a graduate student in the Master of Arts in Social Innovation program, was on what she calls “the edge of an exciting opportunity.” She was working as managing editor for SaportaReport, an online news source popular with Atlanta’s civic, government and business leaders. She and her boss, veteran Atlanta journalist Maria Saporta, and Bill Bolling, founder of the Atlanta Community Food Bank, were working on plans to start a new journalistic endeavor — one that would focus on civic journalism, promote civic engagement and give people the opportunity to have a voice.
“We started thinking about deeper engagement and what that would look like in the journalism space,” she says. “We didn’t want to just report on issues; we wanted to provide resources and engage people in actual calls to action.” Out of those conversations came Atlanta Civic Circle, a nonprofit organization dedicated to civic journalism. After the nonprofit was registered in fall 2018, Edwards spent the following two years building a board of directors, shaping the organization and securing funding. To hone her leadership skills, she enrolled in the Master of Arts in Social Innovation program at Agnes Scott College, in which students
learn to take business principles and adapt them to solve complex, real-world challenges to effect positive change. Edwards defines a social innovator as someone who sees a social problem and wants to work with the community and leadership in the community to solve that problem. “My favorite part of the program has been getting to know the other students in my cohort,” she says. “All of them are incredible people with big goals and energy. I feel like we are very supportive of each other in terms of the ventures we are working on and our goals.” When Atlanta Civic Circle launched in January 2021, Edwards was at the helm, leading the venture
