Note: This report was written by the 2023-24 Executive Committee and originally presented to Madison Area DSA membership ahead of the March 2024 Chapter Convention. This public-facing version has been abridged in some places.
What We Did This Year
Here’s a brief summary of what Madison Area DSA has been up to since last year’s chapter convention! For the sake of brevity we’ll skip over some of the activity also covered in working group reports further below:
Chapter Events
- Our average chapter meeting’s attendance was 21 people. Our chapter activity was lower than in previous years for most of spring and summer 2023 (lowest attendance was eight people in late August 2023), but has been steadily building the last few months, leading to our February and March 2024 general membership meetings (chapter meetings) having our highest attendance since spring 2022 (30-40 people).
- In May the executive committee moved chapter meetings from being Zoom-only to hybrid, with an in-person location at the Social Justice Center. Exec purchased audio/video equipment to facilitate this, and we have been able to sustain conducting hybrid chapter meetings for most of the past year. Previous attempts were made to move to hybrid meetings in summer 2022 but could not be sustained at that time. Prior to that all general meetings since March 2020 had been Zoom-only.
- In September after support from general membership, the executive committee moved general membership meetings from twice to once a month, increasing leadership capacity and allowing meetings to be more focused and purposeful, with more time for preparation in between. For the previous 2-3 years, chapter meetings were held twice a month with one meeting primarily dedicated to political education.
- The second monthly meeting was instead replaced by a monthly social event (starting with marching in the Willy St. Parade in September), giving more opportunities for members to get to know each other and building a stronger sense of community in our chapter. While Exec members were heavily involved in the planning of the first few socials, we have since been able to delegate this task to the Membership Committee.
- In May the chapter co-hosted a May Day event at the Goodman Center with former co-chair Tessa E.
- Exec voted to move our annual chapter convention from a two-day virtual event to a single-day in-person event. After assessing the shortcomings of our previous chapter priority model, which resulted in most submitted priorities passing but not being effectively prioritized by the chapter afterwards, the convention committee recommended moving to a priority chapter campaign model for 2024, where only one campaign would be voted on and prioritized at the 2024 convention.
Other Chapter Activity
- In December, Exec voted to form a new Membership Committee, which has engaged a number of active members and leaders in the chapter. The Membership Committee created a new Skills and Interests Survey to more accurately track member interest and capacity and find suitable opportunities, and began a spring membership engagement drive to systematically work through our entire membership list and ask members to fill out the survey and RSVP for the chapter convention. This has helped drive a significant increase in active membership in the chapter and make the role of membership coordinator easier to step into with more work being delegated to a committee of members.
- MADSA sent several delegations to conventions and trainings the past year. In August we sent 5 delegates to the biennial DSA National Convention in Chicago, several of whom took on larger roles in the chapter after returning. In September we supported sending 8 members to the annual Socialism Conference in Chicago. In October we sent 6 chapter leaders to a DSA Regional Organizing Retreat hosted in Milwaukee.
- MADSA formed a Strike Ready Committee to support local labor action, including turning out members to support UAW workers in Milwaukee in September. MADSA members also provided additional strike support locally to the CUNA Mutual Union and Starbucks Workers United, mostly coordinated through the Labor Working Group.
- MADSA joined a new statewide Socialists in Office (SIO) Committee to liaise with elected DSA members in the Socialist Caucus of the State Assembly. The SIO committee was brought to the chapter by a member working as a legislative staffer.
- In January, the chapter voted to endorse member and Dane County Board Supervisor Heidi Wegleitner in her re-election campaign.
- In February, the chapter approved purchasing new chapter shirts for the first time since 2019, driven by the work of the executive committee to ensure this goal was reached.
Palestine Solidarity
- In mid-October, the chapter held a special meeting to vote on publishing a chapter statement on the Israeli genocide in Gaza, allowing members to democratically offer amendments and feedback on an initial draft written by Exec before voting on the final statement. Many members turned out to events and actions hosted by other organizations, as the chapter lacked capacity at the time to coordinate turnout as DSA.
- MADSA joined the Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine and sent a member to liaise who also took on a leadership role within the coalition. We were able to coordinate member turnout and table at a large December rally hosted by the coalition.
- In early March, Exec voted to endorse the Vote Uninstructed campaign for the April presidential primary election after overwhelming support and interest from chapter members. Due to increased chapter activity, MADSA has been able to take on a larger role in this campaign, committing to leading multiple rounds of canvassing and participating in phonebanks alongside the Listen to Wisconsin coalition. This campaign has engaged 30+ chapter members so far and will likely build a significant amount of chapter capacity going forward, as well as developing closer ties with members in the UW-Madison YDSA and providing valuable experience for our future priority chapter campaign.
Co-Chair Reflection
Whenever the official history of Madison Area DSA is written some day in the future after the fall of capitalism, 2023 certainly won’t be remembered as a high-water mark for the chapter. But it might be remembered as a crucial rebuilding period, where organizers regrouped and started slowly laying the groundwork that could make much bigger victories possible in the next few years.
Although Madison Area DSA existed since the 80s, its modern era (like most other DSA chapters) began in late 2016 following the first Bernie Sanders presidential run, and the chapter grew quickly but unevenly in leaps and bounds over the next few years. During this time the chapter notched some wins in the electoral and labor arenas while developing a strong core of organizers and many active working groups.
However, chapter leaders also faced difficulties in trying to bridge the sometimes siloed, federated nature of these working groups and in building a shared chapter culture that could effectively connect and amplify organizing efforts. Efforts to set chapter priorities at previous conventions had mixed results, as most proposals were passed but lacked the focus and collective buy-in to be truly prioritized by the chapter.
The last few years saw a slow decline in active membership and capacity, attributable to a number of factors such as national membership attrition, the impact of the ongoing COVID pandemic, the loss of social cohesion with several years of mostly Zoom-based organizing, and burnout. This culminated in 2022 when multiple chapter conflicts boiled over, including some members leaving over political disagreements with elements of elected national leadership, and a working group disaffiliating entirely.
This resulted in the loss of most of the chapter’s active leadership core at the time of the 2023 chapter convention. Only one member of the previous executive committee stayed on, with other seats filled by first-time leaders facing the difficult task of assuming the mantle of both administrative and political leadership. Too much responsibility fell on Exec, which was too overburdened with week-to-week administrative tasks to put sufficient work into other local organizing that could grow the membership and provide for more delegation of responsibilities. This loss of capacity was also felt across most working groups, with several struggling to even convene for long stretches last year.
Despite these difficulties, the reduced activity also presented an opportunity to address MADSA’s long-standing issues with siloed working groups in a way that wasn’t possible before – many active members and working group leaders began to agree and buy into the idea of prioritizing shared chapter organizing work in a way that hadn’t taken root in the past.
Changing the nature and form of our monthly chapter meetings was key in starting to turn things around. We began holding hybrid chapter meetings instead of Zoom-only, and a few months later after membership feedback reduced meeting frequency to once a month, replacing the other with a monthly social. By trying to do less and focus our limited energy, we were able to have better-run meetings and free up leadership capacity.
We also benefited from changing winds at the national level – a healthier organizing culture with more focus on member development at the chapter level led to increased support and training opportunities from other DSA member-volunteers and staff. Several delegates who attended the national convention in Chicago returned with new vision and energy, and now saw themselves as leaders who were ready to step into larger roles in the chapter, had clearer ideas of where they needed to step in, and how to develop and bring other members along with them.
The effects of increased leadership capacity weren’t immediate but slowly started to show. In October, MADSA wasn’t yet in a position to take on a leading role in Palestine solidarity organizing locally despite having many passionate members. Our main chapter activity at that time was deciding whether or not to make a public statement which led to heated political debate in our chapter Slack.
Although the statement ultimately had little visibility or promotion from members who argued in favor of publishing it, it was the outcome of a well-run meeting that built buy-in from members engaging in a fair democratic process, and built the self-confidence of Exec committee members in seeing themselves as political leaders.
The formation of the Membership Committee in December pulled in both new and active leaders from different parts of our chapter, as we started doing systematic listwork and phonebanking of our membership in a way that we hadn’t in several years. The ensuing member engagement drive built off the organizing 1:1 conversations, chapter socials, and event mobilizations of the previous few months, and helped activate a number of new members in addition to developing existing active members.
Without this mobilization effort, we likely would not have been in a position to take advantage of the sudden opportunity presented to us by the Uninstructed campaign this month. The increased capacity has the potential to create a virtuous cycle where many active members have the opportunity to develop into stronger leaders through being conditioned by campaign experience.
As part of taking on a larger political leadership role, Exec voted to make significant changes to this year’s chapter convention, determining the priority model used for the previous three years had mixed results and moving to replace it with voting on a single priority chapter campaign that will be run by a committee not housed within a working group. This aims to both focus our work as a chapter and develop capacity by not overcommitting and spreading ourselves too thin, while also hopefully further address the historically federated nature of MADSA.
The coming year presents plenty of opportunities for continued growth as a chapter, as well as new challenges accompanying that. Increasing our active membership and capacity will allow us to take on more projects, and we will need to be intentional to combat the natural tendency for renewed siloing with more committees and active working groups, and to ensure potential conflict can be resolved constructively. Developing stronger norms and expectations for internal communications will be a key task of the next Executive Committee, as will be continuing to delegate work and creating more opportunities to develop a stronger middle leadership layer of our chapter that eroded over the previous two years.
Another important task will be reprioritizing political education and integrating it into our existing work. Creating space to surface and openly discuss political disagreements is important to productively addressing conflict and finding areas of common ground; this is key to diffusing the tendency to personalize political conflict and politicize personal conflict within DSA.
– Adithya P, Co-Chair (Sep. 2023-Mar. 2024)
Treasury Report
Some financial information has been redacted from the public-facing version of this report.
This bump in donations, paired with a drop-off in spending after September meant that we came in just under breaking even in the last half of the year after we did most of our spending in the summer months.
Broadly, I’m generally happy with our spending this year. I said coming into my term as Treasurer that I wanted to spend down the bank somewhat, and we broadly have. Extrapolating to next year, there is no National Convention, so similar overall spending would leave us down less than 1k. We can run similar deficits for some time more to try and build the chapter. There are also some pretty clear ways to reduce or eliminate the deficit, should a future exec wish to do so, by cutting out donations and/or the conference spending. We couldn’t cut sending people to the National DSA Conference, but National recommends that chapters hold a fundraiser to get members out, which we didn’t do, opting to use our bank instead of our time. We are fortunate to be in a position to be able to do that, and likely will be for a few more years.
– Will P, Treasurer, 2023-2024)
Membership Report
As of 3/9/2024 the total number of Members in Good Standing, that is, members who are currently paying dues in some fashion or have filled out a dues waiver is 314. We lost, on average, about 8 people per month, and gained just over 4 people per month on average, resulting in an average net loss of 4 people per month. Based on conversations with our regional organizer, Tom H, this is not unique to this chapter, but an issue that’s shared throughout the DSA. Also, anecdotally, 2023 represented a draw down in participation in leftist organizing spaces in general. This is consistent with the GDC’s 2023 report, which outlines a peak in membership during 2020 and 2021 and a slow decline from that peak.
At the chapter level, this represented a steady loss of membership as people did not renew or quit their membership. Looking over the data, it’s difficult to pinpoint any specific events that caused membership to drop. This is not to say that there were no addressable reasons for our membership decline, but there does not seem to be any one or group of events after which we can point to a large drop in membership. The lack of any steep drops is a bit of a surprise, at least to this Membership Coordinator, given that a significant and active working group, the Socialist Feminist Collective, did not recharter with the MADSA due to political and personal disagreements. This is likely due to the fact that Socialist Feminist Working Group had a model of open membership that did not require one to be a dues paying member. While their exit represented a loss in organizing partners, it did not represent an outsized loss in Members In Good Standing.
Total members in good standing (see Picture M1, below) does show a slight leveling off, even a modest growth starting in January 2024. Further, One can see that both Dec 2023 and March 2024 show spikes of 8 new members a piece, outperforming previous months. This period of growth during the winter of 23-24 corresponds with two events: The uprising in support of Palestinian Resistance, and a dedicated focus on membership and recruitment at the chapter level.
As we saw in 2020, big events can drive membership increases, and while it is difficult to measure exactly; the winter of 23-24 included a number of actions put on by coalition partners in support of Palestine. These events provided MADSA with things to organize around and places for people to plug in to. Our presence and explicit tabling at these events added to our visibility and gave MADSA an opportunity to let people know the causes of the Israel/Palestine conflict and offer organization as a possible organizing space for those who want to support Palestine. In support of this, MADSA empowered a new Membership Committee to focus on recruitment, retention, and engagement. David O. and Phil P. serve as Co-Chairs (with the bulk of the administration and planning in the hands of David O.). In early December, the Committee started organizing an engagement drive pointed at current members, with the ask of getting them to our chapter convention in March 2024. These activities had the effect of normalizing one on one structured conversations, tracking the engagement of members, assessing how active those members were, tracking of member’s strengths and interests, and deliberate attempts to plug those new or re-engaged members into chapter needs (occasionally involving them in Membership Committee work directly). Existing engagement and onboarding efforts, like monthly New Member Orientations, had new and better defined asks for members. It would seem that our focus on member engagement is beginning to pay off. MADSA plans to continue this pattern into the next exec’s term by way of choosing a single, chapter-wide campaign that will serve as a central ask for new or re-engaging members.
Picture M1 – 2024 Chapter Member Growth
This term on exec has proved to me the importance of a central campaign to organize around. Even something as simple as asking people to get themselves to the Chapter Convention can serve as a framework upon which to hang new members, re-engaged members, process development, deadline setting. Comrades have to have the opportunity to get to know each other and work with each other on something. The world at-large is dependent on structure and hierarchy, and it can be tempting to believe that as long as you can define a structure for a set of like-minded people, they will sort themselves into that structure. Not so! Part of what we must do is organize ourselves, one to the other, by way of intentional conversations about a central project of some kind. This builds capacity and trust.
Further, the speed and volume of a project or plan matters. Various parts of the Membership Committee existed before in some form, but did not have the same effect. Both myself in my previous term and other Membership Coordinators have conducted surveys to determine interests, scaffolded intentional one-on-one conversations by way of the Rose Buddy program, even petitioned working groups and committees for needed skills from new or re-engaged members. However, these things don’t serve their purposes if they happen separately, too slowly, or without a defined project to follow-up on whether or not one or another member was engaged to their capacity. The current work of the Membership Committee is a relief to witness, and I look forward to working with the chapter along these lines in the next year.
– Phil P, Membership Coordinator (2022-2024)