The City-County Communications & Marketing Association (3CMA) announced the City of Suwanee 2021 Annual Report as the national 2022 Savvy Award winner in the category of Printed Publications during a ceremony at the Hyatt Regency Portland on September 8.

The Savvy Awards, held in conjunction with 3CMA’s Annual Conference, recognize outstanding local government achievements in communications, public-sector marketing, and citizen-government relationships. The awards salute skilled and effective city, county, agency, or district professionals who have creatively planned and carried out successful innovations in communications and marketing.

LIFE in Suwanee takes inspiration from the beloved ‘Game of Life’ board game, following the road through the city, past community landmarks, navigating around issues, and hitting all the highlights along the way.

"Traditional annual reports tend to be graphs, numbers, and interesting to a very small percentage of the population. What good is creating a publication if no one reads it?” said Abby Wilkerson, City of Suwanee Public Information Officer and the author of the annual report. “In our version, the vital information is still there, but the board game format tells the story in a more engaging way."

The 3CMA judges agreed, noting in their comments: “At first glance, it seemed like too much information crammed into a clever idea. But the more I read all the little stops on the game board and how witty they were, I got sucked in and soon found myself reading them all. Which was obviously the goal. And that makes this brilliant. Who says annual reports can’t be fun? Certainly not the City of Suwanee.”

Over 640 entries in 39 categories were submitted for Savvy Awards this year. 3CMA utilized volunteer judges from across the United States to review every entry and provide constructive comments on the winning entries.

This is the City of Suwanee’s second Savvy Award, having previously won for the annual report in 2018. The 2021 annual report also recently won the Award of Excellence for Outstanding Promotional Campaign from the Georgia Downtown Association.