The Atlanta Fulton County Recreation Authority (AFCRA) has hired new team members to support the development of Atlanta’s LGBTQ+ Community Center.
The organization, a public authority created by the Georgia General Assembly to steward and activate public venues across Atlanta and Fulton County, has hired Chiquita Dent as the Director of Strategic Partnerships and Marketing
Communications after a four-month search and more than 425 applications. In this role, Dent will lead the development of the upcoming capital campaign to fund the project.
Dent has nearly two decades of marketing and partnership experience. She managed a $350 million co-brand partnership at AT&T and grew a major donor program’s participation from three percent to 68% over eight years.
AFCRA also hired Hannibal Hendrix Jr., a student at Morehouse College, as its Summer Fellow. In this role, Hendrix will build a framework to turn the nearly 3,000 responses from the 2025 Feasibility Study into a community needs assessment.
AFCRA conducted a yearlong study in 2025 on the feasibility of developing an LGBTQ+ Community Center in Atlanta. The study included a community survey and events that gathered feedback from identity groups such as trans Atlantans, Black community members, and arts leaders.
AFCRA presented the study’s findings to the City of Atlanta late last year, but how much funding the city will commit to the project is still unknown.
During an AFCRA event on June 29 celebrating LGBTQ+ visibility in soccer, Malik Brown, the Managing Director of the Atlanta LGBTQ+ Community Center Initiative, said that more updates about the project would be offered “in the coming months.”
AFCRA is also accepting applications for the Atlanta LGBTQ+ Community Center Initiative Steering Committee. The committee will work alongside Brown and AFCRA leadership to advance the planning, development, and early implementation of the Center. The committee will meet monthly through 2027 to offer expertise and help cultivate donors to the project.
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