The Difference Between a Meeting Planner and Meeting Facilitator

Ever since I launched a meeting facilitation business, I’ve received a lot of calls from executives asking if I can plan their upcoming meeting. And after talking with a handful of other facilitators who experience similar requests, it became obvious that people don’t know what the heck a meeting facilitator is.

I blame the word “facilitator,” which is defined as a person who makes an action or process easier. Pretty much vague as vague gets.

Let’s define the two.

A meeting planner plans and executes the operational and logistical activities necessary for the production of your meeting. If you’re starting from scratch, need a meeting venue, hotel rooms, connections with other resources, a meeting planner is a perfect place to start. A planner can also help with event theme, external speakers, and other elements to bring an event to life in a unique way.

A meeting facilitator leads and guides the strategy of the meeting itself. A facilitator should be all up in the strategy from the very beginning, working with you to define your goals of the meeting, and then crafting a smart approach to get there. Your facilitator then leads your meeting, guiding your team to get where they need to go. It’s an added bonus if your facilitator is a speaker themselves and/or has knowledge of your industry, but neither of these aspects are necessary as long as the facilitator rocks at strategy.

A planner and facilitator can go together beautifully. If a meeting planner is a fully-stocked kitchen, a meeting facilitator is what’s cooking on the stove.  

Meeting planners are sensational at what they do and they’ll set you up to have a seamless event. But as busy executives, we often focus entirely on making sure all the logistics of a team meeting or retreat are handled, and we forget about the most important reason for doing it: the output of the meeting itself. This is the purpose of a meeting facilitator: to design the strategy, craft the process, and lead your team to successful work.