How We Use Money

Empty Chairs events will always be free to attend.

They are made possible by volunteer hosts giving their time to create a simple space where people can be around other people.

But keeping Empty Chairs safe, reliable and available in more communities costs money.

Our approach is simple: money should help us support more hosts, reach more places and build the systems needed to keep Empty Chairs running well.

Supporting our hosts

Our hosts are the people who make Empty Chairs happen.

Funding can help us give them the tools, training and support they need to host confidently and safely.

That might include host materials, signs, training, guidance and resources that make running an Empty Chairs event as simple as possible.

Keeping people safe

Empty Chairs is deliberately informal, but the organisation behind it needs to take safety seriously.

Money may be spent on safeguarding, insurance, training, policies, professional advice, incident management and the systems we need to respond properly when something goes wrong.

These things might not always be visible around the table, but they are an important part of making Empty Chairs responsible and sustainable.

Technology that keeps everything running

As Empty Chairs grows, managing hundreds of hosts and events manually becomes increasingly difficult.

Funding helps us build and maintain the technology behind the movement, including our website, event systems, databases, communications tools and host support systems.

The aim is not to make Empty Chairs more complicated, it’s to keep the experience simple while making the organisation behind it more reliable.

Reaching more communities

We want Empty Chairs to be available wherever people need it.

That means finding and supporting new hosts, building partnerships, reaching communities where Empty Chairs does not yet exist and helping new events get established.

Funding can support outreach, campaigns, materials and reasonable travel where there is a clear purpose behind it.

Building a small professional team

Empty Chairs has been built through an extraordinary amount of volunteer effort.

We want volunteer hosts to remain at the heart of what we do.

But some work needs consistency, specialist knowledge and someone who is responsible for making sure it gets done.

As Empty Chairs grows, funding may therefore be used to employ a small team to support hosts, manage safeguarding, develop partnerships, raise funds, maintain our systems and coordinate the movement.

Paying people appropriately for essential work will make Empty Chairs safer and more sustainable.

Keeping Empty Chairs sustainable

Not every pound we receive needs to be spent immediately.

Where appropriate, Empty Chairs may keep money in reserve so that the organisation can continue operating if income changes unexpectedly.

Reserves can help us meet existing commitments, respond to unexpected costs and make longer-term decisions rather than having to operate from one month to the next.

The people sitting at Empty Chairs tables will continue to be volunteers.

An Empty Chairs event will always remain exactly what it is today: a volunteer sitting at a table, wearing orange, leaving some empty chairs and welcoming anyone who wants to join them.

We are not trying to professionalise the conversation around the table.

What does need to become more professional as we grow is everything happening behind it.

Supporting hundreds of volunteers, managing safeguarding concerns, maintaining technology, working with partners, handling finances and making sure events happen reliably requires time and expertise.

A small central team can take care of that work so our volunteer hosts can focus on the simple thing that matters most: being there.

We want Empty Chairs to stay lean.

That means spending money where it genuinely improves safety, reach or sustainability, and avoiding unnecessary complexity and bureaucracy.

We will always try to get good value from the money entrusted to us.

As the organisation grows, larger spending decisions should have appropriate oversight and a clear connection to the purpose of Empty Chairs.

The goal is not to build a large organisation for the sake of it.

The goal is to build enough infrastructure to support a very simple idea at a much larger scale.

A responsible organisation cannot assume that money will always arrive exactly when it is needed.

Keeping some funding in reserve gives Empty Chairs breathing room.

It can help us continue supporting hosts if funding temporarily falls, meet commitments we have already made and deal with unexpected costs without disrupting the movement.

It also allows us to make sensible long-term decisions rather than feeling pressure to spend money simply because it is available.

We want people who support Empty Chairs to be able to understand where our money comes from and where it goes.

As Empty Chairs grows, we intend to make our financial information increasingly accessible.

That may include information about our income, major areas of spending, staff costs, reserves and annual accounts.

We are still building the organisation behind Empty Chairs, but transparency will be an important part of how we grow.

Empty Chairs exists to create places where people can spend time around other people.

The organisation behind it will inevitably become more structured as it grows.

The experience around the table should not.

Money exists to support the mission, not complicate it.