I frequently use the phrase “stacking chairs” as a metaphor for all sorts of community volunteering actions. Someone recently asked me to explain what I meant by it, and I thought it would be a good topic to share more broadly as a blog post.

“Stacking chairs”, taken literally, is what it sounds like. You know those stackable plastic and metal chairs that they have in your local library’s community room or similar space? Grab one, add it to the top of the stack. If you spend a couple extra minutes stacking chairs, the community organizers get to go home that many minutes earlier. If you’re used to running or attending small community events, you may have seen this in action. If you’re used to running or attending large community events, the venue may not actually allow organizers and volunteers to do this, so be sure to ask before you go and rearrange furniture, lest you cause headaches for someone else.

But the value in this phrase is not in its literal meaning. The value comes from what this kind of volunteer effort can represent. Stacking chairs is a useful construct because it has a few properties:

• It’s a task that doesn’t take much training. If someone is able to lift a chair and carry it a short distance, they don’t need much guidance beyond following the lead of the person in front of them.

• It’s not particularly glamorous. There are plenty of exciting community volunteer roles that carry prestige with them, but this isn’t something that would end up on someone’s résumé.

• It’s something that happens after the fun ends. The talks / performances / game night / whatever else one might be organizing is over, but organizers need to break everything down before they can go home. Attendees and participants are free to leave and not necessarily expected to help at this stage. Organizers may not explicitly ask for help with this, but help is often appreciated.

Stacking chairs and other volunteer tasks that meet these criteria are a litmus test for identifying people who might be reliable contributors who are interested in getting more involved in a community. When I use the phrase “stacking chairs”, I’m usually using it as short hand for ways to find and recruit future volunteers. They’re (usually) the kind of people who want to help just to be helpful, and they’re eager to pitch in with whatever work needs doing. If you’re a community organizer, take some time to figure out what tasks count as stacking chairs in your community, and keep watch for the folks who actively seek out that work. And if and when you are a community member, be the kind of person who stacks chairs¹.

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