Building the Mass Org: #DSA100k Membership Drive Debrief
by the DSA Growth & Development Committee
DSA recently ended a six-week membership drive on Nov. 14, 2020 that saw nearly 13,000 brand new members join up, and an additional 2500 lapsed members renew their dues. Incredibly, one in every six current DSA members became a member during this time! Where can we go from here?
Far and away, DSA is the United States’ largest and fastest growing socialist organization in generations with over 90,000 members. With the pandemic, police brutality, climate change, and economic inequality continuing unabated, our mission to build a socialist organization and movement worthy of the moment does not stop with the end of the membership drive. In this post-drive assessment, we’ll go into how this drive was developed, our accomplishments and challenges, and lessons learned and what we can take away from the drive as we continue to 100k and beyond. If you’re not a member of DSA yet, you can become a member at www.dsausa.org/join.
SETTING OUR GOALS
At the 2019 DSA Convention, delegates voted in favor of Resolution #2, which created the DSA National Growth & Development Committee (GDC). The resolution tasked the committee with developing and facilitating the execution of a plan for DSA to grow to 100,000 members in good standing by 2021 with prioritization for setting strategies for growth in black and brown workers, queer and women workers, and working class populations in general; setting targets for growth by region; creating tools and materials for recruitment, member engagement, leadership development; and more. The #DSA100k Membership Drive was one of multiple initiatives of the GDC in 2020 to push us closer to accomplishing these goals.
In creating the proposal for the membership drive we recognized several areas that DSA chapters and members could use additional assistance. First, DSA, unlike many other membership organizations across the world, lacked BIG intentional periods of recruitment that any member could participate in. Second, members and chapters lacked tools, training, and structures to make recruitment easier and to track their recruitment effectiveness. Third, the coronavirus pandemic had made many of our traditional recruitment tactics such as tabling at events, social events, and canvassing in person near impossible. In short — we recognized a need for an ambitious, externally-focused, new member organizing structure that had a clear ladder of engagement, the capacity to bring in thousands of brand new recruits, and created a sense of collective contribution that was increasingly missing due to social distancing.
The core element of the #DSA100k drive was the #DSA100k Pledge, a pledge to build a mass, multi-racial, working class socialist organization. Specifically, members that signed the pledge set for themselves a goal of recruiting three new members into the organization. Chapters participated by designating one or several point people to serve as 100k Captains to ask members to take the pledge, and additionally, many chapters pledged to grow their membership size by 10% and begin developing new AFROSOC, Labor, and YDSA branches within their chapter where possible.
Organization-wide we set ourselves the goal of:
- 5000 new members by November 7
- 2000 #DSA100k Pledge signers
- 100 #DSA100k Captains
- After smashing our original goal of 5000 new members several weeks ahead of time on October 24, we expanded the goal to 8000 new members and extended the deadline to November 14.
SUCCESSES AND HIGHLIGHTS
Our recruitment drive was one of the most ambitious efforts DSA has ever taken on as we look to become the largest socialist organization in American history. We need to grow to #DSA100k and far beyond if we are going to go toe-to-toe with the ruling class, and we took a major step forward during this drive.
But to actually get to 100,000 members, we are going to need more and larger campaigns that involve chapters from across the country. That is why we met with 100k Captains, Growth and Development Committee Leaders, and DSA staff, to understand what we can learn from the drive for future national efforts.
Going off our numbers alone, we hit almost every major goal that we set. More than 2000 DSA members signed our 100k pledge committing to recruit at least three new members, with more than 1000 recruiting at least one and 433 hitting their three member goal. Our recruitment drive helped DSA bring in over 14,800 new and lapsed members (over 12,000 brand new) through one of the fastest growing periods in the history of our organization.
We saw this success repeated at the chapter level. 179 chapters grew by at least 10% during the length of the drive, and this happened in no small part due to the tireless organizing of our 100k Captains, chapter leaders who acted as liaisons and point people for the drive in their chapter. 122 DSA members signed up to be a 100k Captain for their chapter with more than 88 unique chapters appointing at least one. Many of our most successful chapters by percentage growth were in the South, highlighted by chapters like SW Louisiana, Charleston SC, and San Antonio that held creative events, heavily phone- and text-banked their membership, or followed up directly with pledge signers to help them overcome challenges.
Engaging Chapter Leaders to Organize their Membership
In order to make this drive real for our 200+ chapters, we needed a way to organize them beyond just direct outreach by our small committee. We decided to prioritize building a network of organizers who could move their own chapters into action around the drive, our 100k Captains. We could only do this with support beyond our committee, and the GDC, NPC members, and staff worked to recruit as many chapters as possible to select a 100k Captain and to ensure that person was a leader in their chapter. Once a chapter selected their captain, our job was to organize them into the work and prepare them for our three main asks: ask their members to sign our 100k Pledge, follow up with pledge signers to overcome obstacles, and help their chapter hold an external facing recruitment event in the wake of the election.
We held introductory one-on-ones with each of our 100k Captains to set local goals and to figure out which tactics would be most effective in their chapter. We followed this up with regular group check-ins through the drive to introduce new tools and tactics, discuss how to overcome obstacles, and allow chapters to share innovative new ideas. We also set up a Slack workspace that was highly active, and volunteers and committee leaders posted frequently. This emphasis ensured wide participation in the drive in a very short timeframe, including several chapters that had never before participated in a national campaign. The more connections a national campaign has with individual chapter leaders, the larger the campaign will be.
Developing Permanent Membership Engagement / Onboarding Structures in Chapters
If we are to build a mass, multi-racial, working class socialist organization, we need to be recruiting at all times, in all areas of our lives. But we can only grow if we intentionally ask the people in our lives to become members. Our chapters not only need to be asking people to join, but they also need a process to onboard new members. Through the Recruitment Drive, chapters received a myriad of resources to help them think about how they can begin recruiting, including our How to Make a Membership ask guide, our recruitment tools checklist, and outlines for how to hold new member meetings. As a result, several of our chapters took those tools and used them to build their first outreach programs to continue recruiting well past the drive. We must continue to help our chapters develop recruitment tactics and member engagement structures to bring people into the organization, and national campaigns should plan for what skills and tools chapters should leave with.
Emphasizing Relational Organizing with New Tech Tools and Incentives
This campaign provided a way for any DSAer, no matter where they live, to participate in building their organization. DSA tech and operations staff were crucial to building custom tech tools like our referral link system and leaderboard that let members track their sign ups and their progress towards individual and chapter wide goals. More than that, these tools helped create a sense of collective pursuit and momentum where members could see how their individual work contributed towards our national campaign, a feeling that is hard to obtain in our current world of social distancing. These tech tools made recruiting fun and fostered a spirit of friendly competition between members and chapters- people really enjoyed being able to see variations on “the fundraising thermometer filling up.” Offering a limited edition DSA hat incentive for members that completed their pledge also served as a novel but low-stakes rationale for members to participate and recruit. A lot of the work we do as socialists can be a grind, and so keeping things playful and stylish makes a real difference in engaging and retaining members who feel like they’re missing out if they do not participate.
Our First Internal National Campaign
We did not anticipate the level of buy-in we would get from our chapters when we launched the recruitment drive, and many chapters jumped at the opportunity to take part in a national project. We believe this speaks to the desire for support many of our chapters have in getting a campaign off the ground. Chapters, especially new and small chapters, often struggle setting direction and building campaign infrastructure from scratch on their own. By creating resources and materials that could be taken on by any chapter, we provided a low cost opportunity around which leaders could organize their membership around a concrete project. This helped chapters identify new leaders who were capable of taking on roles as part of the drive and learn new skills that could be applied to future local work.
Chapters need the freedom and ownership to design their own campaigns, but a strong national campaign can help them develop organizing skills and can give them an easy way to grow member participation.
Seizing the Political Moment
We made a challenging decision to schedule the drive in the middle of one of the most intense and draining campaign seasons in American history, but we believe this helped drive up our new member numbers far beyond our original goal.
Every election season, DSA has a bump in membership, and we deliberately wanted to use the drive to take full advantage of this moment. It proved to be one of the fastest growing periods we have ever had, with 3,000 new members joining in just a few days following the November 3rd election. Millions of working class people were moved to vote on election day, but many understood that casting a ballot on November 3rd would not be enough to win Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, or any of the other wins we need to survive our present crises. With thousands of DSA members having real conversations with their family and friends and hundreds of chapters and members engaging in a vast online social media campaign, we had made our message clear: we have a world to win and joining DSA is the next step to getting there. Tensions were high awaiting results, but in the election’s wake, people all around the US were ready to make a commitment to start building a better world.
Planning recruitment drives around pivotal political moments is a worthwhile strategy when looking to build a multi-racial, working class movement.
CHALLENGES AND LESSONS LEARNED
During our recruitment drive, we made major progress towards a 100,000 member DSA. However, we believe DSA could have grown by more than 15,000 new members with some changes, and there are other ways we could have grown to build the mass organization we can be. And while we are on our way to becoming the largest socialist organization America has ever seen, it will not be enough if we do not represent and lead the whole of the multiracial working class.
DSA Must Emphasize Recruitment From the Entire Working Class
The membership drive’s goal of targeted recruitment at BIPOC, youth, and union members through the development of AFROSOC, YDSA, and labor branches was not supported as well as it could have been, despite some notable successes which included a well-attended AFROSOC #DSA100k training and some YDSA chapters participating in the drive. More broadly, targeted constituency recruitment remains a challenge for DSA. Successful constituency recruitment relies on multiple factors including whether our overall political orientation speaks to these constituencies, a fully-engaged comms strategy, and where we are choosing to devote real time and resources (including funding for second language materials and full-time organizers) — things that were not entirely realized through the #DSA100k drive’s membership-based recruitment strategy. The Recruitment subcommittee will focus on these challenges going forward.
National Campaigns Need a Dedicated Communications Team from the Start
Our recruitment drive focused on organizing our members into action, but this requires a deep communication strategy to effectively engage every possible member. We needed the drive to seem real, big, and exciting to our membership to boost participation, especially in the context of a relational organizing campaign. We built an ad hoc comms team of staff and GDC members that started meeting regularly shortly after the drive started, and we were able to put together regular graphics and gifs to celebrate milestones. However, we struggled to develop a comprehensive communications plan ahead of time and do more than the bare minimum necessary to keep the drive moving forward.
We believe we also missed a few key opportunities around comms that could have helped build our organization. We needed to leverage our relationships with DSA elected to help them serve as more public surrogates for the movement who can help bring in new constituencies and communities into DSA. While we had leaders like Congresswoman Cori Bush and NY State Senator Jabari Brisport ask people to join DSA using their referral link, future campaigns should consider dramatically expanding their focus on an effort to bring electeds in as key participants. We also did very little to publicize our drive externally, towards an audience that may be more likely than average to join. There is a burgeoning network of left media, podcasts, and other platforms, and we could have used them as a megaphone for political leadership to talk about the drive to a broader audience. We could have placed stories about our drive in more established media, to reach a broader non DSA audience. Having an established network of communication volunteers across DSA, along with a fully operational communications department, will be key in expanding the comms capacity of future national campaigns.
Developing a National Organizing Body Requires as Much Time and Energy as Possible
While we built a highly talented organizing team within a very short timeline, it is very difficult to hold 120 organizers accountable to their commitments. These folks are by and large leaders of some of the strongest chapters in our organization, and it is easy for them to refocus on local work unless they are constantly connected to the national campaign. Primarily, this means making sure that all organizers have regular, one-on-one check-ins with a member of the committee. We lacked the capacity to do this for everyone, and after the initial phase of the drive we encouraged leaders to sign up voluntarily for check-ins focused on how to talk with other chapter leaders about the drive and how to use tech tools like our autofilled Spoke request form. This filled in a significant gap, but to make sure all chapters are able to take full advantage of a national campaign, future committees need to prioritize regular, one-on-one check-ins.
We also could have done more to center the development of DSA organizers through the course of the campaign. Our check-ins revolved around discussion of tactics, but we could have done more to consciously and coherently support organizers in having tough conversations with their fellow members and leaders about getting involved. While some of our organizers were experienced, others were newer to DSA and needed support in having structured organizing conversations. Any national campaign needs to be able to leave a new cadre of organizers in its wake, ready to take on future national campaigns.
NEXT STEPS
We have never attempted a national recruitment drive before, and we had no idea what it would actually look like on the ground. While this drive could have been even larger and better targeted, we believe our first ever #DSA100k Recruitment Drive was a real success. Thanks to the hard work of more than 1,000 DSA leaders and staff who participated, we are closer than ever to building the kind of mass, multiracial working class organization we need to defund the police, stop evictions, and win Medicare for All and a Green New Deal. We believe this is only one step in building a nationwide culture around recruitment that will ensure that every campaign, project, and meeting builds towards growing our movement. Our chapters by and large agree, with 92% saying they would participate again in a future recruitment drive
You can become a member at www.dsausa.org/join. We’re still short of our goal of 100k. In 2016, 13 million people voted for a democratic socialist candidate for president. Even more participated in protests for racial justice and against police brutality in the summer of 2020. The Socialist Party in the US at its height, in 1912, counted 118,045 dues-paying members. Adjusted for population, that would be the equivalent of over 400,000 dues-paying members today. Today, there are 330 million people in the US. We will need millions of democratic socialists in the United States. We have a large task before us to persuade those who don’t already agree with us and to cohere the multiracial working class into a movement. As for next steps, we strongly recommend that DSA launch another recruitment drive in the near future as a key tool to help us grow to 100k members and beyond. We also plan to continue supporting chapters and national committees to add effective recruitment components to their work.
