In the first week of our #DSA100k recruitment drive, 2500 new members joined! Stand with our 75,000+ fellow members to organize for the election and beyond. https://t.co/WBWtgQ1LUQ pic.twitter.com/IBPqnQZapq— DSA 🌹 (@DemSocialists) October 9, 2020
I'm really disappointed to see DSA do this campaign when they already have very low membership engagement. Of the 500 members my local chapter claims maybe 80 of them are active. That is being generous.
Trying to get more people to join without first addressing their large, disengaged membership leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They are not effectively utilizing their base, already. They do not need to grow.
Feels more like an MLM scam than an attempt to build political power, especially with that "Recruit three people with this code, and get a free DSA hat!" promotional lol
Wait but who the fuck has a political group where most of the people are going to meetings?
I'm talking about any type of activity. If 80 people were showing up to meetings, that would be one thing.
The bulk of the membership are people who switched their monthly Bernie donation to DSA dues. I have not seen a campaign in DSA to address this problem, and yet they are trying to expand their membership.
Also, every party I have been in (besides DSA) has had membership expectations.
There is not much socialists can do with $5 a month.
Not with an individual donation of $5 a month. Obviously.
We need labor.
People need their labor, to sell, to survive. I get that you want more people helping with work, but getting more members who will mostly pay their dues, does not hinder this goal.
Organizations have a limited capacity. An organization is where they focus their labor, and nothing more.
I'm disappointed to see DSA move closer towards the UK Labor Party strategy: more focus on mass-membership, less focus on base-building. It is a fragile organizing strategy that has a bad history of success.
You can't have a "base" in an organization with 5 digit membership in a country of 325 million. The CPUSA had almost 75,000 official members at its peak in a country of 125 million. And the risks of being a CPUSA member in the 30s were much higher than being a DSA member.
The DSA isn't supposed to be a hobby club or a volunteer organization. An "engaged base" of 50,000 people isn't going to do jack shit in a country of over 300 million when the goal is a political project. Especially when you keep it 100 and consider who is actually in the DSA - they aren't threatening anyone in power anytime soon.
Its a larger participation than all the other orgs combined. I think dsa can benefit from internal upkeep and education for sure, though idk how thats impended by a membership drive. In fact the best time to do such a campaign is after a larger batch of new members joins. I think one of the bigger lacking things in dsa is effective communication systems, which a lack thereof creates a hard barrier for entry, participation, and engagement. This is an ongoing thing the org is working on and its not impended in any way by a membership recruitment campaign.
Its a larger participation than all the other orgs combined.
I have had much different experiences.
In fact the best time to do such a campaign is after a larger batch of new members joins.
You think so? I would imagine having a plan in place to engage & educate members before bringing more people on would make the most sense. That process takes a lot of work in my experience. It won't be successful executed on-the-fly.
This is an ongoing thing the org is working on and its not impended in any way by a membership recruitment campaign.
Membership engagement is impeded by holding your largest recruitment drive ever before addressing these issues. The best time to engage people is when they are being brought on board. That process was horribly lacking in my experiences with DSA. I saw more people disengage from DSA after joining than I've seen in any other organization.
Why is DSA choosing to bring on a shit-ton of members before addressing these issues? I do not understand that.
Its a different base building. Getting your relatives and friends to join DSA to get engaged with the movement and their local community and also call themselves socialist is a good thing. These people would have otherwise never gotten engaged in any way, so now they have the opportunity to. DSA does tons of things to educate people and teach them how to get engaged, idk what u even mean they should do that they arent already tbh. Chapters also vary a lot from place to place, but i would agree that engagement could be better, but thats an actual matter of communication systems imo. If there were a dsa slack or something for each chapter it would be easier to stay engaged for example. These things are all being worked on though.
It's hinging on the hope of action being catalytic, I think.
The more people show up, the more people think "oh shit this is really happening" and so it goes. Realistically, membership engagement is always going to be low with stuff like this--work, kids, and so on. Can't say this is the best way forward, though.
Engagement only goes up when members have clear expectations & the organization provides meaningful obligations. DSA is not interested in that, they are trying to become a mass-member party a la UK Labour.
I'm really disappointed to see DSA do this campaign when they already have very low membership engagement. Of the 500 members my local chapter claims maybe 80 of them are active. That is being generous.
Trying to get more people to join without first addressing their large, disengaged membership leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They are not effectively utilizing their base, already. They do not need to grow.
Feels more like an MLM scam than an attempt to build political power, especially with that "Recruit three people with this code, and get a free DSA hat!" promotional lol
Wait but who the fuck has a political group where most of the people are going to meetings?
I'm talking about any type of activity. If 80 people were showing up to meetings, that would be one thing.
The bulk of the membership are people who switched their monthly Bernie donation to DSA dues. I have not seen a campaign in DSA to address this problem, and yet they are trying to expand their membership.
Also, every party I have been in (besides DSA) has had membership expectations.
So they have a bunch of money to do things. I can't see anything wrong with that..
I would not call collecting donations "membership." There is not much socialists can do with $5 a month. We need labor.
The cheapest you can pay is $20 a year, $27 if not a student. Or you can completely waive it.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying.
oh idk why i read it as cant afford to pay $5 a month
Not with an individual donation of $5 a month. Obviously.
People need their labor, to sell, to survive. I get that you want more people helping with work, but getting more members who will mostly pay their dues, does not hinder this goal.
These are two separate issues and i hate that i have to explain to people how growing the largest socialist movement in decades is not a bad thing.
Organizations have a limited capacity. An organization is where they focus their labor, and nothing more.
I'm disappointed to see DSA move closer towards the UK Labor Party strategy: more focus on mass-membership, less focus on base-building. It is a fragile organizing strategy that has a bad history of success.
You can't have a "base" in an organization with 5 digit membership in a country of 325 million. The CPUSA had almost 75,000 official members at its peak in a country of 125 million. And the risks of being a CPUSA member in the 30s were much higher than being a DSA member.
I don't understand what you are saying here. You cannot have an engaged base of members with five digit membership?
The DSA isn't supposed to be a hobby club or a volunteer organization. An "engaged base" of 50,000 people isn't going to do jack shit in a country of over 300 million when the goal is a political project. Especially when you keep it 100 and consider who is actually in the DSA - they aren't threatening anyone in power anytime soon.
Can't part of an organization focus their effort to growing, and another part on building a base?
Sure. That is not happening. That is why I have these criticisms.
If DSA first has a campaign to build internal organs for membership engagement, then had this recruitment drive, I would not have this criticism.
This is literally the first time the org has had any sort of membership recruitment drive.
Yes. They decided to move in the direction mass-membership, low participation in a time where their engagement is already low. That is my criticism.
Its a larger participation than all the other orgs combined. I think dsa can benefit from internal upkeep and education for sure, though idk how thats impended by a membership drive. In fact the best time to do such a campaign is after a larger batch of new members joins. I think one of the bigger lacking things in dsa is effective communication systems, which a lack thereof creates a hard barrier for entry, participation, and engagement. This is an ongoing thing the org is working on and its not impended in any way by a membership recruitment campaign.
I have had much different experiences.
You think so? I would imagine having a plan in place to engage & educate members before bringing more people on would make the most sense. That process takes a lot of work in my experience. It won't be successful executed on-the-fly.
Membership engagement is impeded by holding your largest recruitment drive ever before addressing these issues. The best time to engage people is when they are being brought on board. That process was horribly lacking in my experiences with DSA. I saw more people disengage from DSA after joining than I've seen in any other organization.
Why is DSA choosing to bring on a shit-ton of members before addressing these issues? I do not understand that.
Its a different base building. Getting your relatives and friends to join DSA to get engaged with the movement and their local community and also call themselves socialist is a good thing. These people would have otherwise never gotten engaged in any way, so now they have the opportunity to. DSA does tons of things to educate people and teach them how to get engaged, idk what u even mean they should do that they arent already tbh. Chapters also vary a lot from place to place, but i would agree that engagement could be better, but thats an actual matter of communication systems imo. If there were a dsa slack or something for each chapter it would be easier to stay engaged for example. These things are all being worked on though.
What did the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists ever do to you? 😤
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Yeah I gotcha I was just leftist meming 😬
It's hinging on the hope of action being catalytic, I think.
The more people show up, the more people think "oh shit this is really happening" and so it goes. Realistically, membership engagement is always going to be low with stuff like this--work, kids, and so on. Can't say this is the best way forward, though.
Yeah I hope this is it. I basically never go to meetings because nothing happens....
It's not lol
Engagement only goes up when members have clear expectations & the organization provides meaningful obligations. DSA is not interested in that, they are trying to become a mass-member party a la UK Labour.
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