Mediation & Facilitation
Focused on Collaborative Outcomes
From a single meeting to full project design and implementation, our passion is to foster engagement, facilitate collaboration, and produce practical work plans that achieve durable agreements and outcomes that matter. We have extensive experience working with private organizations, public agencies, non-governmental organizations, government-to-government engagements, educational and research institutions, and faith communities.
Schedule a consultationOur Approach to Mediation & Facilitation
Taking an experiential, collaborative approach, we help clients develop the necessary technical, policy, and community information to inform productive substantive discussions among the project team, and with those who will be impacted. Our 30 years of experience, integrity, expertise, and creativity in confidential mediation and facilitation supports public and private organizations and teams who are:
- Working through a challenging issue(s) where stakeholders hold many diverse and even conflicting perspectives on how to address historic harms or reach agreements to move forward constructively on mandates and shared goals
- Needing to build inclusive organizations and systems as well as resilient employee capacity to navigate change
- Seeking an impartial, third-party to navigate or to map a path to transform conflicts and achieve desired outcomes
Mediation and Facilitation: Examples & Philosophy
City of Bellingham Public Works
Equitable Public Engagement Design & Facilitation (2021-current)
Mary Dumas is providing equitable engagement design and facilitation services for the City of Bellingham’s first Urban Forest Plan, including preparation of: an equity assessment checklist for inter-departmental communications regarding improved access to and diversity of input from vulnerable and marginalized populations on policy goals, values, and recommendations; stakeholder outreach strategies; key messages; and measures of success.
Joint Board, Water Resource Inventory Area 1
Facilitation of Government-to-Government Work Product Review and Input Sessions (2016-2020)
Mary Dumas facilitated technical work product review and engagement services for the groundwater technical consultant team working with Whatcom County, local municipalities, public agencies, Lummi Nation, and Nooksack Tribe to complete an initial conceptual and steady state and seasonal-average-transient numerical groundwater flow model of the LENS area of Whatcom County and adjacent British Columbia.
City of Bellingham & Whatcom County
Facilitation and Stakeholder Engagement Design (2017-2019)
Mary Dumas was selected to design and facilitate an open, transparent formation of the Homeless Strategies Workgroup, a new, inter-government advisory body formed by joint legislation. Mary prepared all pre-session materials, engaged stakeholders in situational assessment and strategic planning activities, and facilitated development of recommendation development and prioritization guidelines for a countywide response.
National Parks Service
Manhattan Project Hanford, WA Site Stakeholder Engagement | Public Engagement Assessment and Design Phase 1 (2020)
Mary Dumas joined the Kearns & West team serving the National Park Services’ Manhattan Project Sites Update to include the voices and stories of marginalized and harmed populations (historic and current) in educational exhibit topics and design. Mary conducted assessment interviews with survivors, their descendants, and local stakeholders of the Hanford, WA region and contributed to theme analysis, public engagement design recommendations, and documentation.
What Our Clients Say
Deep Knowledge about Trauma and Trauma-informed Facilitation
Mary Dumas has both inspired and informed our work at the Institute for Engagement and Negotiation, University of Virginia. Her deep knowledge about trauma and trauma-informed facilitation has truly been invaluable. She has been an active advisor on our development of equitable collaboration processes, and a frequent training partner on how communities may transform problematic community spaces. While she has many talents, we have drawn primarily from her knowledge and experience in navigating contemporary issues that evoke historical harms. We are now much more attuned to recognizing and acknowledging the need to "make a seat for the ghosts at the table," as Mary frames it, when the past speaks to the present. With her blog posts, her presentations at national conferences, and her leadership in professional organizations, she has not only enriched our Institute's practices but that of the conflict resolution field as a whole.
