Tabling: Set Up & Talk

Tabling Missions

Setting up tables at events is a lot of work, but it’s worth it. Tabling can accomplish a variety of missions:

• Tabling Outreach Build support for your ideas & campaigns
• Tabling Recruiting An opportunity to recruit activists
• Tabling Training Give activists an easy learning experience
• Tabling Fundraising Raise money for campaigns

Tabling Elements

To conduct successful tabling, you must secure locations, obtain tabling kit and produce tabling materials.

• Tabling Location
• Tabling Kit
• Tabling Materials

Group Building

All of these benefits are essential for building your group, and making it strong. It is important, especially when you are not involved in a local organizing drive, to generate activity and be seen.

If your group is not active, and you do not plan any events, your members will drift away.

Tabling is one of the tried and true organizing methods. Ironically, it doesn’t necessarily involve a table. Tabling refers to recruiting in any situation where people pass by or congregate. You can table to recruit activists, to build visibility for a campaign, to get signatures on a petition, to distribute literature that will further inform people about an issue, and to train people to do basic civic work.

Quality Contacts

Tabling provides a forum for one-on-one communication. It reaches a smaller audience than media like broadcast television, but everyone you reach through tabling is a direct local contact who is much more likely to become active than the people nationwide who see your message indirectly.

Why Tabling?

Tabling is the ‘foot work’ of building a group. It helps you meet new people and actually engage in political action. Think about it: every table you do is a new opportunity to grow and develop links within your area. A regular table is a perfect place for people to get to know you and learn about your politics.

Plus, everyone wants to have an affiliation with something, why not have something that can benefit in ways nothing else can.

Tabling Examples

See examples of people tabling to good effect.