Macon-Bibb Citizen Advocacy

Macon-Bibb neighbors standing with Macon-Bibb neighbors since 1978.

For more than four decades, Macon-Bibb Citizen Advocacy has helped build lasting, freely given relationships between local citizens and people with developmental disabilities who are at increased risk of isolation, neglect, abuse, or exclusion.

Citizen advocacy is not a program of services. It is a community response to vulnerability, one person choosing to stand with another as a loyal friend, advocate, and ally.

Since 1978, more than 831 local citizens have been involved in this work, and some relationships first formed in the 1980s continue to thrive today.

Your gift through GA Gives helps keep this quiet, powerful work alive in Macon-Bibb County: finding people who may be alone or at risk, making strong matches, and supporting relationships that bring protection, friendship, dignity, and belonging.

This December 1, please give to Macon-Bibb Citizen Advocacy and help ordinary citizens do something extraordinary and check out our story on Canva!!

What is Citizen Advocacy?

Citizen advocacy is simple, but powerful: one person in the community chooses to stand with another person — not as a paid worker, not as a case manager, and not as part of a system — but as a loyal friend, advocate, and ally.

The person with a disability is often someone whose gifts, needs, hopes, and concerns have not been fully seen or heard. The citizen advocate is someone living an ordinary life in Macon-Bibb County who is willing to enter into an intentional relationship and, over time, help that person become more connected, protected, and valued in ordinary community life.

Macon-Bibb Citizen Advocacy began under contract with the Georgia Advocacy Office at a time when citizen advocacy was still a new and unproven idea. There was no guarantee that people in our community would say yes when asked to enter into these deeply personal, freely given relationships. 

But Macon-Bibb did say yes.

For more than four decades, citizens here have stepped forward as advocates, board members, friends, and supporters. More than 831 local citizens have been involved in citizen advocacy, and some relationships first established in the 1980s continue to thrive today.

That is the quiet strength of this work.

Citizen advocacy is not a program that simply provides services. It is a community response to vulnerability. It is built one relationship at a time, with care, loyalty, independence, and hope. Advocates may help their partners be better known, better heard, better protected, and more fully included in the everyday life of the community we all share.

Your gift to Macon-Bibb Citizen Advocacy helps keep this work alive.

It supports the careful work of finding people who may be isolated or at risk, identifying committed citizens who may be the right match, forming strong relationships, and supporting those relationships over time.

When you give, you help make sure that people with developmental disabilities in Macon-Bibb County are not left alone on the margins. You help build a community where people are known by name, valued for their gifts, and surrounded by people who choose to stand with them.

Your support helps ordinary citizens do something extraordinary: become loyal allies, advocates, and friends.