Polly McKinney

“Good data and information are the foundation of positive change, yet feelings tend to drive decisions. The key to success is knowing how to craft a strategy that meets people where they are, builds trust in the New or Different, and ultimately sparks action that moves us all forward.”

Polly McKinney is a partner at Lexicon Strategies, where she continues more than three decades of integrating communications and policy into strategies that move communities forward. Her expertise is partnering with organizations and governments for successful outcomes through both policy and programs.

 Polly’s breadth of experience is counted on by an array of entities to inform and advance their work.  Voices for Georgia’s Children has relied on her mastery of policy, communications, political strategy and government affairs since 2010, pushing forward issues that improve the lives of kids and families.  She has advised Georgia’s Literacy for All Campaign to End Low Literacy, Voices’ Child and Adolescent Health Coalition, and countless cohorts of Emory medical residents, Morehouse School of Medicine psychiatry residents, and Emory Law’s Barton Child Law and Policy Center graduate students. She is a member of the Georgia School Based Health Alliance Board, the National Juvenile Justice Network and Georgia’s Juvenile Justice State Advisory Board, an appointment originally made by Governor Nathan Deal.  Polly is past Chair of the ChildKind Board of Directors and remains a member of the Annie E. Casey Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative state steering committee, Prevent Child Abuse Georgia Advisory Board, and Georgia’s Child Representation Steering Committee, among others. Beyond all of that, she has attained an impressive fanbase for her “Two-Minute Take” videos and Legislative Updates that she crafts for Voices’ more than 10,000 followers.

 Prior to her work in child policy, Polly was responsible for communications and comms strategies for Southern States Energy Board (SSEB), an economic development organization composed of governors from 16-plus states. She has also served as Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Georgia and to date has clocked more than three decades in Georgia’s film industry.  In fact, Polly owns Long Game Strategies, LLC, where she writes and directs documentary, commercial and animation content for clients interested in making positive change in their chosen sectors. 

Notably, Polly’s film and video experience includes producing and directing multiple short and long-format documentaries, plus work on countless local and national commercials, as well as multiple seasons on the Food Network series, “Good Eats”.  She has created ads for Georgia’s 2020 Census and the American Academy of Pediatrics GA Chapter, and an array of stand-alone youth-voice pieces commissioned by such entities as the GA Division of Family and Children Services, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities and the Georgia Power Foundation. 

Additionally, Polly wrote and directed the first documentary shown continuously at the National Prisoner of War Museum at Andersonville, Georgia featuring former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Sen. John McCain and retired Vice Admiral James Stockdale, plus interviews with forty ex-P.O.W.’s. More recent documentary clients include the Georgia Council of Accountability Court Judges, Carl Vinson Institute of Government at UGA, Feeding Georgia, Georgia’s Office of the Child Advocate, and the Georgia Statewide Afterschool Network.

Polly was presented the Georgia Legislative Women’s Caucus Servant Leadership award by Rep. Stacey Abrams in 2014 and proclaimed an Outstanding Georgia Citizen in the State of Georgia by Secretary of State Brian Kemp in 2018. She also served as legacy advisor to Governor Zell Miller in 1996. She has participated in U.S. Department of State government-focused cultural exchanges to Kenya, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, as well as a civic exchange program in Turkey run by the Turkic American Federation.

She was a member of the first graduating class of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics and earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of North Carolina, with a major in English literature and a minor in pre-medicine. She studied her Junior Year at the University of Bristol, England, where she focused on English literature, history of theology, and art history. 

She has two adult children, Skye and Zane, and lives in Atlanta.