One Association CEO on Elevating the Role of Planners

Skift

8 hours ago

This association exec says planners are much more than just a final check — and often have the final say where meetings are concerned.
P Joanne Ray, principal at Consultants in Association Philanthropy, has spent much of her career in leadership roles at various associations, including CEO of the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation and the Urgent Care Association, and executive director of the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation, among others.
While leading these organizations, some with staffs as big as 75 people, she always has had her hand in meeting planning. She's also seen some planners elevate their roles to become valuable consultants to association leadership.
Skift Meetings sat down with Ray to get her perspective on planners' value to associations, and how they can build successful working relationships with the C-suite.
As a CEO, how involved were you in your organizations' annual meetings?
I would say that for most organizations that I've been with, we would meet weekly, starting three to four months out from the meeting. Some organizations had two major meetings; when I first started with the Urgent Care Association, we had a big spring meeting and a big fall meeting. So you jumped right out of one and into another. The meetings included the key staff: the meeting planners and the director-level staff.
What details did you work on with your meeting planners?
I was involved with site selection and contracting and went on site inspections. Also, when it came to entertainment or keynote speakers, I would bring the final couple of choices to a planning committee of volunteers, industry members who made those decisions.
Programmatically, I was not involved because I was working for medical associations where my education directors managed teams of subject matter experts who put the content together.
As far as site selection, why is it important for planners to be looped in from the start?
The planner has to be in on the conceptual stage enough to know what we're looking for in a site. And if next year's meeting is going to be dramatically different than this year's meeting, the planner needs to conceptually understand what are we incorporating that we didn't have, like adding a gala that we didn't have the year before, or adding an off-site activity.
How important is it to have a planning committee?
It's important because they bring the knowledge of the hot topics, prominent presenters, and what the pain points are for the attendees.
What makes for the best working relationship between a planner and an association CEO?
Under the best scenario, the head meeting planner is part of the strategy team. They're at the board meetings, so they know the leadership. They're integrated into the program planning because they need to assign the rooms. They're also integrated into the funding and sponsorship because, depending on how well-versed they are, they might end up helping sponsors understand what opportunities there are.
How important is it for planners to understand the association's culture?
Very important. They need to understand the members well enough to know that you don't plan a meeting for emergency nurses the same way you do for restaurant owners and operators, or for veterinarians. Every group has its own kind of culture.
Do you believe associations can have the same experience using outsourced meeting planners as they can with planners who are on staff?
At the Urgent Care Association, we outsourced planning to a meeting planning group that was with us for my last three years and then for a couple of years after I moved on. And it worked, because they became a part of the team. When we had a weekly or a biweekly meeting, they were part of that meeting. They weren't on site, but they were local. Or they would join electronically. So they were part of the planning process, and they actually ran those meetings.
Have you had planners overturn your decisions?
Absolutely. I can think of instances where they would say, 'There's no way you can schedule this like this. There's not enough time for people to move from one session to the next.' Things like that. They are the check, if you will — almost to the extent to be the final say, unless there's really an issue.
What do you think planners can do to get that proverbial 'seat at the table'?
I'll answer you the same way I've answered dozens of aspiring association directors over the years: You've got to get your blinders off and think beyond your job. You can't be siloed. You've got to understand how your job integrates with the others.
And that's a two-way street. The CEO needs to set a culture that is inclusive and to include the planners in the right meetings and the right settings, and to show that he or she recognizes their value.