Why Work with Us

We transform your meetings using a variety of proven group facilitation methodologies and best practices. We ensure that your meetings are more productive. We help you get better results and improve decision-making. And our techniques truly engage people, foster collaboration, equity, and innovation. And changing the way you meet also positively influences your organization’s culture and the way it functions. After working with us, people often say they didn’t realize meetings could be both so valuable and enjoyable.

What We Do

Meeting Trainings and Facilitation Courses

Learn how to run effective meetings and upskill your staff.
Think about how many hours you’re in meetings. Can they be better? Surprisingly, most employees have never had any meeting training. Even a short course on group facilitation skills, online meeting techniques, or effective meetings training can pay dividends year after year — be it professional development for employees or a training for new managers. And while a meeting about meetings can sound dreadful, our meeting skills trainings are hands-on, productive, and fun.
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Meeting Design

Consulting services to improve meetings and conferences.

A more consultative process, meeting and event design helps you restructure your meetings to better serve their purpose. For example, if your big annual conference isn’t connecting with sponsors and isn’t producing the breakthrough learning and networking attendees demand, an event strategist helps fix those challenges to produce a better event. Or, if your weekly staff meeting is all talk and no action, redesigning the meeting agenda and flow can give you that change.

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tools and techniques for meeting design, consulting and coaching for meeting makeovers

Networking and Connection-Building

Improve the quantity and quality of matches.

Many meetings and conferences succeed when participants truly connect with each other. Some meetings are explicitly geared to connect people – buyers and sellers, cross-discipline researchers, etc. – and others need to build connections and foster community as a secondary objective. As networking facilitators, we use a variety of tested methods to dramatically improve attendee networking beyond simply hoping for magic hallway moments.

Professional Meeting Facilitation Services

We save you time and get you better results by facilitating your meetings.

Our professional meeting facilitation services focus on engaging, participatory meetings with an eye on real results. The on-site or online meeting facilitation is informed by pre-meeting design, prep, and research. We can also do online facilitation (e.g. Zoom facilitation) and assist as a corporate retreat facilitator, board retreat facilitator, or conference facilitator.

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Uncover the Hidden Value in Your Meetings

  • Great Ideas
  • More Time
  • Effective Solutions
  • Stronger Culture
Where We Work

Based in Washington, DC, we do much of our work for local clients and those planning events near us in DC, Virginia, and Maryland. However, we also travel regularly to facilitate meetings and train organizations – and we have team members around the country. Plus, we know that online meetings can be great and we do a lot of work virtually as well.

  • iconIn-person
  • iconOnline
  • iconHybrid

Typically, we engage on the following meeting types:

Retreats, offsites, and all-hands

Conferences, conventions, and tradeshows

Strategic planning meetings

Innovation, ideation, and brainstorming sessions

Team, staff, and committee meetings

Roundtables, townhalls, and charettes

Just a few of Our Clients
We work with innovative organizations that value their people’s time and the power of truly connecting participants.
What Our Clients Say
Casey Creech

Casey Creech

Senior Leadership Consultant at MITRE

The Better Meetings process is all about pulling out those hidden gems that exist inside the room, not just the obvious ones that sit on top. And that's something Better Meetings does an amazing job of – helping you tap into the entire wisdom of the room, not just the loudest people.
Suzanne Gunther

Suzanne Gunther

Communications Director at Community Opportunity Alliance

Lee Gimpel is a real joy to work with, and he is just so smart and committed to this work. And his colleagues are the same; it feels like working with kindred spirits who really care that our event is a success, and that people are engaging in a meaningful way.
Malikkah Rollins

Malikkah Rollins

Director of Industry and Education at DOCNYC

Meeting with Lee to brainstorm was exhilarating! I appreciate his open-mindedness and creativity when it comes to perceiving what's needed to make meetings more interactive and effective … You need someone like Lee to help turn social interactions into vital, connecting, community-building events!
E. Lee Davenport

E. Lee Davenport

Director of Community Development at US Ignite

The training and advice have been easy to implement in my day-to-day gatherings, board meetings, and even our conference. But, more than that, it’s gotten me to really think differently about how to significantly improve our meetings in new ways.
Yvonne Y. Malloy, MPP

Yvonne Y. Malloy, MPP

Chief Operating Officer at National Hispanic Medical Association

We have gotten nothing but positive responses about the day, about a change of focus for us, for how we do our conference. It provided an interactive experience for our members and our doctors, and they were ecstatic.
W. Ethan Lick Eagle, PhD

W. Ethan Lick Eagle, PhD

Strategy Coach at Innovatrium

What people long for is structured interaction with people so they can process information. Lee's approach solves this problem beautifully.
Cheryl Little

Cheryl Little

Principal at Verdance Group

Lee is a master facilitator. On short notice, Lee redesigned a nearly two-day Board meeting for a national association who needed to deliberate complex strategic questions. Board members have praised the deep thinking and ideas generated from our time together.
Ron Berg

Ron Berg

Executive Director at ACT-Association for Independent Agents

Our intent was to create a virtual technology conference that surpassed all other experiences across our industry; engaging, truly interactive, fast-paced, and of course high content value with real takeaways. Working with Lee has crafted just that experience. I highly recommend engaging Better Meetings.
Benjamin Prosky

Benjamin Prosky

Executive Director at AIANY&Center For Architecture

Participants left the day energized, with a clearer understanding of our organization's strategic vision and goals. For groups looking for novel and impactful ways to engage their key stakeholders, I would highly recommend working with Lee to organize your next important meeting!
Trish Martinelli

Trish Martinelli

Executive Director at Defense Entrepreneurs Forum

Lee's work reflected to the staff the value that the organization places in them, and the output from the meeting exceeded my highest hopes.
Jenny Parker

Jenny Parker

Vice President of Global Communications at Conservation International

I really appreciated Lee’s thoughtfulness in designing our day and all the creative ways he had to help us focus, collaborate and engage. Everyone in the group enjoyed the day.
Laura Singler, CAE

Laura Singler, CAE

Account Executive at Nursing Organizations Alliance

Lee utilized innovative activities to bring the attendees together, allowing them to share best practices with each other, and generally get to know each other better. The sessions were highly interactive and engaging and attendees have had great things to say.
Michael J. Petrilli

Michael J. Petrilli

President at Thomas B. Fordham Institute

From fun-but-not-hoky ice-breaking activities, to small-group activities to set norms and rebuild trust, to jumping into substantive policy conversations, Lee's guidance, leadership, and expert facilitation skills helped our group get off to a great start. I highly recommend him!
Eileen T. O’Grady PhD, RN, PCC

Eileen T. O’Grady PhD, RN, PCC

Founder of The School of Wellness

Lee is a gifted facilitator and he is deeply knowledgeable in how to engage groups. Highly recommend.
Meagan O’Toole, JD, CAE

Meagan O’Toole, JD, CAE

Executive Director at New York County Psychiatric Society

Lee and Better Meetings helped us organize and facilitate a meeting that more than met our expectations! Everyone remained engaged throughout the day and even managed to tackle one of our thorniest issues while simultaneously increasing the Board's sense of camaraderie.
Fraser Hughes

Fraser Hughes

CEO at Global Listed Infrastructure Organisation

The end product is great. The feedback from my clients is very good. So for me, it's an easy decision when we come to do these things. The Better Meetings team, for us, are a natural go-to organization.
Ginny Winkworth

Ginny Winkworth

Program Manager at Agents Council for Technology

We got terrific feedback from the people that attended, and everyone that gave us that feedback felt more engaged and more involved. I don't see why any organization wouldn't feel that that was a plus for them, and a benefit for engaging Better Meetings.
We are regularly quoted in the media for our expertise on meetings, facilitation, collaboration, group dynamics, conference design, networking, and innovation.
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Read the Artcles
Lee Gimpel is a meeting planning expert and founder of Better Meetings, a meeting design, facilitation and training company in Washington, D.C. that works on improving in-person and online meetings with a focus on engagement. Gimpel says some gamification at events seems like “gimmicky window dressing,” and it doesn’t really move the needle in terms of engagement or bottom-line results.
Planning an event should always start with why you are doing an event,” advises Lee Gimpel, president of Washington, D.C.-based meeting design, facilitation, and training company Better Meetings. “Often, planners jump right to executing on the what and how of an event.”

Better Meetings founder Lee Gimpel is Forbes’ expert on meetings and facilitation.

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