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DeKalb County SPLOST

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The DeKalb County SPLOST (Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax) is a one-cent sales tax that provides funding exclusively for capital projects such as roads, buildings, vehicles and major equipment, and other long-lived improvements.

Awareness Campaign

The grassroots campaign developed by Jones Worley targeted each city within DeKalb County. Jones Worley also developed creatives for the advocacy group that developed the awareness campaign.

CLIENT

DeKalb County Government

LOCATION

DeKalb County, Georgia

ASSIGNMENT

Branding and marketing communications

As a result, DeKalb County SPLOST was adopted by voters by a 70% margin in a referendum in November 2017 and ran
through 2024. It has generated almost $400 million over six years for capital improvements for the county and city governments
in DeKalb County.

Educational “Penny Power” Campaign

Following the successful passing of the SPLOST, Jones Worley was then asked to develop an education campaign that would promote transparency, accountability, and awareness of the county’s progress on the various project initiatives. To inspire community engagement in a fun and memorable way, Jones Worley created a family of penny characters to symbolize the message of “Penny Power” and to be the iconic face of the campaign. Each penny character represented shared investments in key infrastructure improvements including roads, public safety, parks, libraries, and senior centers.

Jones Worley developed the “Penny Power” campaign with supporting messaging like “Your Pennies at Work.” We also created the Penny family characters (Joe Penny, Libby Penny, Chief Penny, Parker Penny and Officer Penny) to be project-specific messengers and visual reminders to help the citizens identify, in a friendly and fun way, where SPLOST funds would be spent.