The annual State of the City Business Address once again crystallized the relationship between City Hall, the Coca-Cola Co. and the Atlanta Committee for Progress.
The evening event filled Atlanta’s Symphony Hall, complete with a welcome from Hala Moddelmog, president and CEO of the Woodruff Arts Center. It was the third consecutive time the event has been held at Symphony Hall.
“I want to congratulate Mayor Andre Dickens on his re-election,” Moddelmog said as she kicked off the event.
Coca-Cola President and Chief Financial Officer John Murphy used his introduction of the mayor to announce that the company has committed $4.3 million as part of its World Cup Legacy Program. The donations included $1 million to the United Way of Greater Atlanta for its youth leadership, career readiness and workforce development initiatives and another $1 million to Partners for Home, which works with the City of Atlanta to develop homeless response strategies and provide affordable housing to the unhoused. See below for the complete list of donations.
“These grants will support wonderful causes,” said Murphy, who also endorsed the mayor’s Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative, which he said, “is key to helping make Atlanta better for everyone.”
Murphy also said the company recently invested $6.9 million to support behavioral and mental health programs at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, as well as the arts through donations to the Atlanta Opera and efforts to combat homelessness.
“For the mathematicians, that totals over $11.2 million, and we are very proud to be associated with all of these wonderful causes,” Murphy said. “It’s not just about the investment. Collaboration is key to driving progress. Mayor Dickens’ Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative is about ensuring that partners throughout Atlanta share resources and opportunity.”
At last year’s State of the City event, the Coca-Cola Co. announced $5.1 million to 13 Atlanta-based nonprofits.
Carol Tomé, CEO of UPS and former chair of the Atlanta Committee for Progress, also spoke in favor of the Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative, calling it a moral imperative to keep moving Atlanta forward.
Dickens told those in attendance that the state of the city is strong, and that it’s strong because “Atlanta is a group project.” He also noted that the World Cup is only 89 days away.
After outlining several of his administration’s successes, Dickens spoke of how Atlanta is “at a moral crossroads.”
The mayor spoke of the two Atlantas, where residents might live in neighborhoods separated by only a few miles, yet have starkly divergent access to opportunities and success.
The mayor then urged for the extension of the city’s eight Tax Allocation Districts so that his administration could invest in its neighborhood strategy in the near term.
But the city will need to get the support from the Atlanta City Council, the Fulton County Commission, and most importantly, the Atlanta Board of Education, which represents half of the tax revenues, to raise the anticipated $5 billion the mayor wants to allocate towards its Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative.
Dickens then urged the people in attendance at the State of the City to call their elected officials to help his administration fulfill its promise to reinvest in seven of the city’s priority neighborhoods.
Coca-Cola’s 2026 donations to Atlanta announced at the 2026 State of the City event:
Great leadership by Mayor Dickens and great reporting by Maria!
I hear the talking, they’re absolutely all wonderful at it. The last time I drove through Atlanta, downtown looked awful. Lindbergh looks awful. Meanwhile Gainesville looks better than ever. Pooler has gone insane in a good way. Some food for thought assuming any of the talkers care to listen. And I’ll shut up now because none of this is my fight anymore. But for those who remember 1996 this is painful for many of us.