Our Mission
The mission of the HUB Augusta Collaborative is to pursue innovative, collaborative solutions
that bolster equitable access to all the essential elements of a thriving community.
The HUB for Community Innovation is collaborative campus that empowers residents, unites nonprofits,
and drives equitable access to education, health, and economic opportunity.
Through shared space and purpose, we foster innovation, amplify community voices, and build a
stronger, more connected Augusta.
ABOUT
The HUB Augusta Collaborative
The HUB Augusta Collaborative is a partnership that began with the Medical College of Georgia Foundation at Augusta University, the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Augusta, and the Community Foundation for the CSRA. With a desire to, at a minimum, replace the grocer that left the Harrisburg neighborhood in 2017, friends at each of these organizations brought together partners with similar goals and vision.
The collaborative started as the Laney Walker-Harrisburg Community Partnership (LWHCP), and extended to include many other partners through the shared goal of achieving a HUD Choice Neighborhoods grant. The Collaborative knew that the community's revitalization would not be realized - no matter how well-intended - without many partners working together towards a common goal, through strategies that were complimentary and supportive of each other.
Ultimately, the Collaborative led the City of Augusta to achieving its first ever Choice Planning Award, bringing together nearly $1 million in aggregate grant dollars to develop a comprehensive neighborhood plan. Simultaneously, the Collaborative - now working as the HUB - quickly built what became the HUB for Community Innovation - a 50,000+ square foot $24M+ community center meant to be at once a gesture to the neighborhood that community mattered, and also to create strategies that led residents to a place of upward mobility. Celebrated alongside its largest donors - the Augusta National Golf Club and its partners in AT&T, Bank of America, and IBM, the MCG Foundation, and the Georgia Power Foundation - the Collaborative opened the center under the wise counsel of Condoleezza Rice, who encouraged "you cannot guarantee outcomes, but you can guarantee a path to an outcome. It prepares people and brings innovation to the community and is a part of a trend that we must not just pursue, but pursue with urgency and determination."
ABOUT
Our History
When the 15th Street grocery store closed in 2017, the Medical College of Georgia Foundation leadership understood its responsibility to the communities surrounding the university's health sciences campus. Articulated in the Foundation's Articles, its charitable purpose was to "benefit and promote the well-being of the Medical College of Georgia (at Augusta University)...and the people and communities served by the Medical College of Georgia," in addition to supporting the educational, clinical and research priorities of the university.
Leaning on the wisdom of partners invested in opening doors for communities - like Doug Neil and Daniel Communities, and Rob Hazelton from D3G - the MCGF introduced the concept of the Dream Center to the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Augusta and Community Foundation for the CSRA. The Dream Center, only lines on paper at the time, was a idea Doug brought from a Purpose Built Community in Birmingham - Woodlawn United.
Though many iterations of a plan were considered, it was when the Augusta National Golf Club - looking to expand its contributions to the community - came to the table that ideas began to fully take shape. With "transformational change" as the collective charge, the collaborative took to planning two paths - one very local and one more broad. Introduced officially in 2022, the HUB Augusta Collaborative launched its best effort to embrace the neighborhood, opening the HUB for Community Innovation and leading the City of Augusta to a Choice Neighborhoods Planning award, and subsequent transformation plan.
The rest, as they say, is history - still in the making.
ABOUT
Our Community
The HUB for Community Innovation sits in the Harrisburg Neighborhood, which flourished along the Savannah River in the 1800s as a mill village centered around the Sibley and King mills. When the mills began to decline in the 1930s the area remained largely residential. However, Harrisburg suffered from the effects of suburban flight in the 1950s, followed by urban renewal efforts in the 1970s that left large open swaths of vacant space. In the 1980s, the John C. Calhoun Expressway sliced the neighborhood in half, bringing further decline.
Today, the community is considered to be highly distressed (94.9 out of 100 according to the Economic Innovation Group). The poverty rate is 40.6% compared to the national average of 11.1%, and 24.1% of its residents have no high school diploma compared to 10.6% nationally. What is most shocking is that the workforce changed employers 42.3% of the time compared to only 5.1% nationally. This data demonstrates the severity of the lack of investment that exists.
President & CEO
Director, HUB for Community Innovation
Business Manager
Facilities Manager
Ian Mercier
Board of Directors, Chair
Medical College of Georgia Foundation, Inc.
Shell Berry
Board of Directors, Immediate Past Chair
Community Foundation of the CSRA
Kim Evans
Board of Directors, Treasurer
Boys & Girls Club of Greater Augusta
Brennan Francois
Board of Directors
Community Member
Rob Geoffroy
Board of Directors
Augusta National Golf Club
John Hayes
Board of Directors
Augusta University
Steven Kendrick
Board of Directors
E3 Foundation
Donovan Lee-Sin
Board of Directors
Augusta National Golf Club
ABOUT
Our Board
The HUB Augusta Collaborative is led by a Board of Directors, whose charter members include the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Augusta, the Community Foundation of the CSRA, the Augusta National Golf Club, and the Medical College of Georgia Foundation. The Board also has permanent positions for members of the Harrisburg (and surrounding) community.
