How Empty Chairs Is Run

Community-led. Centrally supported.

Empty Chairs is powered by volunteers in local communities, with a non-profit organisation behind them to give the movement the structure it needs to grow responsibly.

The idea is simple: hosts should be able to focus on creating a welcoming table. The organisation behind Empty Chairs takes care of making sure those tables are part of something properly established and supported.

Empty Chairs didn’t start as an organisation.

It started with one person sitting at one table.

But as more people started creating Empty Chairs in their own communities, something that began as a personal project quickly became a volunteer-led movement.

And as the movement grew, so did the responsibility that came with it.

At a certain point, running everything informally through one person was no longer the right way to operate. Empty Chairs needed an organisation of its own.

So we created one.

Empty Chairs is a non-profit company limited by guarantee.

We are not currently a registered charity.

A company limited by guarantee is a type of company often used by non-profit and community organisations. Instead of having shareholders and shares, it has members called guarantors.

For Empty Chairs, the important part is much simpler than the legal terminology makes it sound:

Empty Chairs now exists as an organisation in its own right.

That gives us a proper legal foundation from which to support the movement, rather than everything sitting informally with Dean or individual volunteers.

Empty Chairs exists to pursue its purpose, not to generate private profit.

[Read more about how we spend money →]

Because Empty Chairs grew.

What worked when it was Dean sitting in a pub every night was never going to be enough for a movement involving volunteers and events across different communities and countries.

We didn’t want to wait until Empty Chairs had the perfect long-term organisational structure before putting proper foundations underneath it.

Creating a company limited by guarantee allowed us to establish a legal organisation relatively quickly and continue building from there.

It means that as Empty Chairs grows, there is an organisation behind the movement through which things like agreements, insurance, policies, data and other organisational responsibilities can be properly managed.

The structure may evolve in the future.

But establishing an organisation now was an important step in making sure Empty Chairs could grow responsibly.

We want hosting an Empty Chairs to remain incredibly simple.

You don’t need to start a local organisation.

You don’t need to form a committee.

You don’t need to create your own branch of Empty Chairs.

You are simply volunteering to create an Empty Chairs table as part of the wider movement.

Empty Chairs provides the framework. Hosts bring it to life.

Wherever possible, the complicated parts should happen behind the scenes so that hosting can remain focused on the thing that matters:

Turn up. Wear orange. Be kind.

Empty Chairs should feel genuinely local, because the people around the table are what make them what they are.

But they are all part of one Empty Chairs movement.

Right now, Empty Chairs is a non-profit company limited by guarantee, not a registered charity.

Empty Chairs grew extremely quickly. Our immediate priority was to create a proper organisation behind a movement that was already happening, rather than continue operating informally while we worked through what our long-term structure should look like.

Becoming a registered charity involves additional decisions about an organisation’s purposes, governance and regulatory structure, as well as going through the registration process.

We don’t want to rush that decision simply so that we can call ourselves a charity.

We may decide that becoming a registered charity is right for Empty Chairs in the future. For now, the company limited by guarantee gives Empty Chairs the legal foundation it needs while giving us the space to make that longer-term decision properly.

We’ve created the structure we need for where Empty Chairs is today, while remaining open to what the organisation may need tomorrow.

It means Empty Chairs exists to further its purpose rather than to generate profit for private owners.

There is, of course, still a cost to running and growing the movement. We’ve created a separate page explaining where our money comes from, what we spend it on and how we’re approaching financial transparency.

[See how we spend money →]

Our Team & Governance

See who’s responsible for Empty Chairs and how the organisation is governed.

[Meet the team and understand our governance →]

Empty Chairs should always feel simple when you sit down at the table.

Our job behind the scenes is to build the organisation that keeps it that way.