Session: Involving Your Community in Decisions that Affect Them
Track: Marketing & Community

9:00am - 12:00pm
Speaker: Penny Mabie, EnviroIssues

Description: Sometimes a decision simply shouldn’t be made without consulting with your community. But how do you know when or if you should be involving your community? What questions should you ask yourself to help make the choice of how to communicate about important decisions? Learn the building blocks to effective, appropriate and meaningful engagement. Participants will learn the difference between marketing communication and stakeholder engagement and gain insights into understanding your audiences’ needs and expectations. During this workshop, participants will be introduced to the International Association of Public Participation’s best practices for effective public participation. Learn about the different levels of community engagement and how to select one. Work a case study to determine the appropriate level of engagement for an impending decision

Speaker Bio: Penny Mabie

Penny Mabie is a public participation leader with more than two decades of experience engaging audiences in decisions that affect their lives and livelihoods. Penny specializes in public involvement, facilitation, development and delivery of training programs, and coordination of inter-jurisdictional strategic planning and communication efforts. Prior to her work in the consulting arena, Penny provided education, outreach, program planning and public involvement for Thurston County and the City of Olympia’s solid waste programs for almost 10 years. Since 2000, as a public involvement consultant for EnviroIssues, Penny has provided facilitation and public participation services to support environmental remediation decision processes, public infrastructure siting and design, multi-jurisdictional task forces on topics including flood control, transportation planning, and landscape-scale conservation. Penny is known for her facilitation, management and implementation of short- and long-term processes with respect and a focus on achieving measurable and durable outcomes. Penny has a Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership and a Bachelors of Arts in public policy and environmental studies. She is a licensed trainer with the International Association of Public Participation.