Pembina Valley Amplified

Building a community public-education project from the ground up

Founder / Communications Lead | 2023–present

Pembina Valley Amplified started because I kept seeing complicated local issues reduced to Facebook arguments, misleading posts, half-truths, and people talking past each other.

I wanted to create something that could slow that process down a little.

So I built Amplified.

It's an independent community communications and public-education project focused on researching local issues, challenging misinformation, and making complicated public information easier to understand. I created the project from scratch, including the name, visual identity, website, social presence, content strategy, and the systems behind it.

There wasn't an existing organization, communications department, or set of instructions to work from. I had to figure out what the project was going to be, what it needed to accomplish, and how to actually make it work.

First, I had to figure out what Amplified was

Starting from nothing sounds exciting until you realize that “nothing” includes the strategy.

What should the project focus on? Who is it for? What should it sound like? What makes it different from someone simply posting their opinion online? How do I make complicated information understandable without oversimplifying it?

I spent a lot of time figuring those things out.

The goal was never to produce content just for the sake of having something to post. I wanted Amplified to be useful. That meant developing a consistent approach to researching issues, checking information, deciding what was actually worth communicating, and figuring out how to explain it in a way that people could follow.

I also wanted the project to have its own identity rather than feeling like an extension of any of my other community work.

Research comes before the post

A lot of the work happens before anyone sees anything.

When an issue comes up, I research it. That can mean looking through legislation, policies, public records, news coverage, organizational statements, meeting information, or other primary and secondary sources.

Then I have to work out what the information actually says.

Sometimes the hardest part isn't finding information. It's figuring out which information matters.

There can be a lot of noise around a contentious local issue: screenshots without context, claims repeated often enough that they start to sound like facts, people interpreting the same policy in completely different ways, or complicated documents that most people aren't going to sit down and read.

My job is to get through that mess and figure out what can actually be supported.

Then I have to make it understandable

Knowing something and explaining it well are two different skills.

Amplified often deals with subjects that are complicated, political, emotional, or all three. If I simply copied the language from a policy document or legislation, I wouldn't be doing much to help people understand it.

So I translate.

I take complicated information and break it into something a normal person can actually read and understand. That might mean explaining what a policy says, putting a local issue into context, correcting a misleading claim, or walking through what a particular decision actually means.

I try to be clear without pretending that complicated issues are simple.

That's an important distinction. Public education isn't about having the shortest possible answer. It's about giving people enough accurate information to understand what they're actually looking at.

I built the digital side too

Amplified needed somewhere to live, so I built that as well.

I developed the website, created the visual identity, set up the social presence, and built the digital structure that supports the project.

That meant making decisions about how information should be organized, how people would find older content, how different types of information should be presented, and how the project could remain manageable as it grew.

It also meant thinking about the relationship between the website and social media.

A social post might get someone's attention, but the website can provide the fuller explanation and supporting information. The two need to work together rather than simply repeating the same content.

I also had to figure out how to communicate when people disagree

This is probably one of the more interesting parts of the project.

Amplified exists in a community where some of the issues it covers are genuinely contentious. People don't necessarily agree about the underlying issue, and they certainly don't always agree about what the facts mean.

That makes tone important.

I don't want Amplified to sound like a lecture, but I also don't want to soften information just because someone might disagree with it. There's a balance between being accessible and being accurate, and between explaining something clearly and turning it into a fight.

That means thinking carefully about what I'm saying, what I can actually support, what context is missing, and what I want someone to understand when they're finished reading.

Sometimes the most useful communication isn't the most dramatic version.

Accessibility is part of the communication work

Making information accessible isn't just about putting it on a website.

I've had to think about how information is presented visually and structurally, including readable typography, colour contrast, alt text, image descriptions, captions, plain language, and screen-reader considerations.

The same principle applies to the content itself.

If information is technically available but requires someone to understand legal or policy language before they can make sense of it, it isn't particularly accessible.

I want people to be able to come across something from Amplified and think, “Okay. Now I understand what they're talking about.”

There isn't really a playbook for this

One of the things I like about Amplified is that I had to create the playbook while I was doing the work.

There's no communications director telling me what the priorities are. No established content calendar. No existing brand guidelines. No one handing me a campaign brief.

I decide what is worth pursuing, research it, figure out how to communicate it, create the content, publish it, and then decide what comes next.

That requires a strange combination of independence and restraint.

Just because something is interesting doesn't mean it needs to become a project. Just because something is getting attention doesn't mean it needs to be amplified. And just because I have an opinion about something doesn't mean it belongs in the project.

Those decisions are part of the work too.

What I've learned from building Amplified

Amplified has taught me a lot about the difference between having information and actually communicating it.

People don't usually need more information thrown at them. They need someone to help them make sense of the information that already exists.

That requires research, judgment, writing, design, technical skills, and an understanding of the people you're trying to reach.

It also requires being willing to say, “I don't know yet.”

I'd rather take the time to figure something out properly than publish something quickly because everyone else is already talking about it.

That's probably the biggest thing Amplified has reinforced for me: good communication starts with good thinking.

What this actually involved

Project development

Building a communications initiative from scratch, defining its purpose, audience, structure, and approach

Research & public education

Researching complex local issues, evaluating information, fact-checking, and translating policy and other complicated material into accessible content

Communications

Content strategy, writing, public messaging, social media, digital communications, and community engagement

Digital development

Website development, information architecture, visual identity, content organization, and digital systems

Accessibility

Plain language, readable design, alt text, captions, image descriptions, colour contrast, and screen-reader considerations

Independent project management

Setting priorities, developing processes, managing the full content lifecycle, and deciding what needs to happen next