Member Statements on Resolution 2025-09-GR02: Invest in Party Infrastructure

Member Statements
1

IN FAVOR by Joe R

I’m so excited to see that our chapter has reached this stage of development. Since joining the chapter in 2023, I have co-chaired a then newly-formed working group that started a mutual aid fund, currently serve on the Steering Committee, and participated in the most recent membership drive — I cannot emphasize enough how beneficial this would be. Comrades in leadership positions throughout the chapter generally don’t have the bandwidth or otherwise cannot dedicate the necessary call time it would take to go through non-member lists, reach out to every new member, recommit lapsing members, and so on. Our General Body Meetings (GBMs) and other large chapter events require way more capacity and work than I think the average rank-and-file member may realize, and having someone on hand who knows our standard operating procedures and can dedicate paid time would make a world of difference to overburdened chapter leaders who do it on a volunteer basis and get taken away from other priorities. I would also really like to see our chapter acquire office space by the end of 2026. We are likely to surpass 3000 members and continue to be one of the most significant political forces in the region — it makes sense to me that we should try to root ourselves in the community even further and make the logistics of organizing certain chapter activities and events easier and more personal by having a dedicated space. I highly encourage all members to vote in favor of this resolution.

2

AGAINST by Dami O

The staffer is not reproducible by year, and invests 26,000 of chapter funds into something that does not provide adequate working conditions or have adequate planning. Vote against this resolution, or it becomes very likely we’ll produce the issues that provided a deficit crisis on the national level. An office space would better support work across the priority campaigns that members voted for at the local convention, as well as the goals of the program we are trying to build.

3

AGAINST by Sam D

Dear comrades,

I am writing in against the idea that our chapter should explore the hiring of a staff member in the new year. DSA’s work is overwhelmingly done by us, its members, and that is as it should be—only the working class will save itself, through its own action. This is reflected in our position on staff for a socialist membership organization; our national convention recently passed Resolution 27: Staff Relationship to Members in a Democratic Organization, which says “DSA affirms that the role of staff is to make members more collectively self-sufficient to deliberate democratically and pursue our mission and priorities.” So, how would a staffer do that? They would not, without a clear plan, and the amendment passed by the original resolution’s authors to broaden the potential tasks of a staffer indicates that they *do not* have a clear plan. This proposal would dedicate almost our entire yearly dues income towards increasing our labor power by the feeble strength of one. That is a waste of resources.

Other poor planning in the resolution is on display as you read. The staff position it would create immediately violates our political principles of fair wages and dignity for labor. The position will be a half-time 1099 position with no benefits, ie, whoever we hire will pay hefty self-employment taxes on the wage we give them, taking them far below the promised $25/hour wage. And then, a living wage in the DC area is $29.25/hour for a single adult with no children (Source: [MIT Living Wage Calculator]). Do we think we will escape capitalism by forcing poorly compensated demands onto a single overworked staffer? We will not.

Our chapter has significant reserves that should be carefully dedicated towards building socialism in our metro region. That is not what this resolution offers. Please vote no.

In solidarity,

—Sam

4

IN FAVOR by Ken B

Comrades,

I’m writing today to express my strong support for this resolution to hire a staffer for our chapter. While DSA’s strength is in our membership, investing in party infrastructure in the form of a part time staff member will expand and enhance our capacity, enabling us to recruit more members, retain lapsing members, and get our existing members more activated and engaged with DSA.

While this resolution entails a substantial investment of chapter resources, it has the potential to greatly enhance our revenue stream in the long run. In addition to the financial benefits of new recruitment and preventing lapses, the staffer will conduct direct fundraising from our existing members. Currently, we do relatively little direct fundraising for the chapter, and I suspect most chapter members do not know that local dues exist. In addition to getting more members on local dues, I suspect many members would be willing to make larger one time or annual contributions if asked. Over the summer, an anonymous chapter member donated $20,000 to the chapter; simply getting this individual to recommit to their previous donation would go almost 80% of the way to sustaining the staffer position, not accounting for any new large donors at all.

The staff member will also help supplement and enhance our existing Member Engagement work, ensuring that all members are contacted within 48 hours of joining and a week before they lapse and that any gaps that emerge in MED’s coverage can be neatly and smoothly filled. This should greatly enhance our chapter’s ability to engage and retain members, something that has been a critical challenge for DSA in recent years–the decline in DSA’s membership from 2021-2023 was a failure in engagement and retention, rather than a lack of recruitment. This would help future proof our chapter against similar slumps, and help us utilize a larger portion of our membership by making sure all new members get activated and engaged in the chapter.

Lastly, I want to address an alternative that’s been proposed to this: renting out an office as a physical home base for the chapter. I am not opposed to this in principle–there are clear advantages to having a physical location we can call home. However, a physical office is exclusively a cost, and while it can certainly help build the chapter in the long run, will never be revenue positive. An office is still a worthwhile goal for our chapter, but a staffer is a necessary tool we need to build to the point of affording one comfortably.

We are the largest DSA chapter to be operating without paid staff. Many chapters smaller than us have one or even two staffers, and most chapters have found them to be an indispensable organizing asset. Ella T, currently on the National Political Committee, increased the revenue of East Bay DSA by over 100% in her first year as a staffer for the chapter, indicating that this model is both effective and sustainable. While the work we’ve been able to do with only volunteer hours is admirable, it’s time for us to take this step towards building mass party infrastructure in the form of paid staff. I hope you’ll join me in voting YES on this resolution.

5

IN FAVOR by Emma D

Hiring a staffer will massively expand our ability as a chapter to reach out to new members, people whose dues have lapsed, people who are on our lists but haven’t yet joined, etc, which would free up our members to do other important political leadership and organizing work. Staffers in other DSA chapters have more than paid for their own salaries through fundraising efforts and are critically important for our continued growth and success.

6

IN FAVOR by Zach T

Comrades,

I’m writing today to express my strong support for this resolution to hire a staffer for our chapter. While DSA’s strength is in our membership, investing in party infrastructure in the form of a part time staff member will expand and enhance our capacity, enabling us to recruit more members, retain lapsing members, and get our existing members more activated and engaged with DSA.

While this resolution entails a substantial investment of chapter resources, it has the potential to greatly enhance our revenue stream in the long run. In addition to the financial benefits of new recruitment and preventing lapses, the staffer will conduct direct fundraising from our existing members. Currently, we do relatively little direct fundraising for the chapter, and I suspect most chapter members do not know that local dues exist. In addition to getting more members on local dues, I suspect many members would be willing to make larger one time or annual contributions if asked. Over the summer, an anonymous chapter member donated $20,000 to the chapter; simply getting this individual to recommit to their previous donation would go almost 80% of the way to sustaining the staffer position, not accounting for any new large donors at all.

The staff member will also help supplement and enhance our existing Member Engagement work, ensuring that all members are contacted within 48 hours of joining and a week before they lapse and that any gaps that emerge in MED’s coverage can be neatly and smoothly filled. This should greatly enhance our chapter’s ability to engage and retain members, something that has been a critical challenge for DSA in recent years–the decline in DSA’s membership from 2021-2023 was a failure in engagement and retention, rather than a lack of recruitment. This would help future proof our chapter against similar slumps, and help us utilize a larger portion of our membership by making sure all new members get activated and engaged in the chapter.

Lastly, I want to address an alternative that’s been proposed to this: renting out an office as a physical home base for the chapter. I am not opposed to this in principle–there are clear advantages to having a physical location we can call home. However, a physical office is exclusively a cost, and while it can certainly help build the chapter in the long run, will never be revenue positive. An office is still a worthwhile goal for our chapter, but a staffer is a necessary tool we need to build to the point of affording one comfortably.

We are the largest DSA chapter to be operating without paid staff. Many chapters smaller than us have one or even two staffers, and most chapters have found them to be an indispensable organizing asset. Ella T, currently on the National Political Committee, increased the revenue of East Bay DSA by over 100% in her first year as a staffer for the chapter, indicating that this model is both effective and sustainable. While the work we’ve been able to do with only volunteer hours is admirable, it’s time for us to take this step towards building mass party infrastructure in the form of paid staff. I hope you’ll join me in voting YES on this resolution.

7

IN FAVOR by Sheely E

Very excited about this proposal and that our chapter has reached this stage of development! Since joining our chapter in 2022, I’ve served as a leader in the Labor Working Group, organized the now up-and-running LWG communications subcommittee, and participated in chapter-wide leadership development work — I cannot emphasize enough how beneficial this would be for growing our chapter.

Comrades in leadership positions throughout the chapter often don’t have the bandwidth or otherwise cannot dedicate the necessary call time it would take to go through non-member lists, reach out to every new member, recommit lapsing members, and so on. Our General Body Meetings (GBMs) and other large chapter events require a lot of capacity, and having someone on hand who knows our standard operating procedures and can dedicate paid time would make a world of difference to overburdened chapter leaders who do it on a volunteer basis and get taken away from other priorities.

I also really want to see our chapter acquire office space by the end of 2026 and believe a staffer can help us raise the money to secure an office on sustainable terms. We’re set to soon surpass 3000 members and we should try to root ourselves in the community even further and make the logistics of organizing certain chapter activities and events easier and more personal by having a dedicated space. A staffer actively grows our resources by fundraising and recruitment, making it even more likely that we can not only secure but maintain an office space. I highly encourage all members to vote in favor of this resolution.

8

AGAINST by Elizabeth T

I strongly oppose this resolution because it is simply financially unsustainable and irresponsible.

The resolution would require our chapter to, based on a one-time donation, spend $26,000 on a part-time staffer for 1 year. To pay for this staffer in future years after the one-time donation runs out, our chapter would need to recruit (see attached chart for more detail):

  • 333 new members/month (4,000 new members/year) assuming they pay dues of $5/month ($60/year)
  • 167 new members/month (2,000 new members/year) assuming they pay dues of $10/month ($120/year).
  • 111 new members/month (1,333 new members/year) assuming they pay dues of $15/month ($180/year)

Note that $10/month is the most common dues amount according to National DSA. This would require us to recruit 167 new members per month. But our chapter’s actual recruitment over the past 12 months has only been 70 new members/month—and that includes a non-recurring influx of new members in the immediate aftermath of the 2024 election.

So, based on $10/month dues, in order to pay for the new staffer, we would need to:

  • More than DOUBLE our current monthly recruitment rate (increase by 139%: from 70 to 167)
  • Increase our chapter’s total membership by 72% in just 1 year (from 2,761 to 4,761).

None of this is remotely possible. We would be forced to lay off the staffer after just 1 year of part-time work.

Staffer reso - chart 10.3.25
Staffer reso - chart 10.3.251045×645 55.9 KB

Finally, I also want to point out:

  • There are much better ways to spend $26,000. In this time of rising fascism, our community members are in desperate need of mutual aid, and $26,000 can go a long way— whether in purchasing and distributing goods, creating and distributing know-your-rights materials, leasing a central space, etc. Hiring a staffer to do administrative tasks would be a tremendous waste of funds.
  • This resolution would provide zero benefits to our employee. Does that not go entirely against our professed labor values?
9

IN FAVOR by Kurtis H

I am writing in favor of the proposed resolution. I have been a member of DSA since 2019 and have served in various leadership positions. In that time, I have seen a volunteer base stretched thin across administrative duties. Out of our ~2,500 members, only around ~150 or ~200 are engaged in any degree (we can see this reflected in chapter vote totals). Of those, 50 (at best!) are doing daily operational work. These 50 are generally spread out between working groups, branches, and the Administrative Committee. Despite best efforts (truly, heroic work from folks), we see that things strain, with capacity issues regularly flagged and burnout a recurring symptom. I have seen folks say that the work of any proposed staffer should be done by the rank and file membership, and I don’t disagree, but we have to grapple with the reality that we need a steady base from which to build. In my time as a chapter member, I have seen multiple recruitment and retention drives launch and fizzle. This is not for lack of care or attention or effort, but simply a matter of people with time. A staffer is a new approach to this old problem in the chapter, one that offers a path to expansion of our volunteer pool towards sustainability. Other chapters have successfully deployed staffers to help build and retain their membership and to fundraise. I see no reason to think that our chapter could not similarly see success with this approach.

10

IN FAVOR by Guido V

There are over 3000 MPD officers employed by the city of DC. They each receive salaries to do 40+ hours worth of work every week. That’s 120k hours of labor power dedicated to wielding state power and defending capital. Our chapter has 2000+ volunteer members. A fraction of that is plugged in enough to come to meetings and actually organize. And of that fraction, the number of hours they can put towards the cause falls way short of that of our enemies.

This MUST change. We MUST build our labor power and capacity. The only way to do that is to compensate comrades for their labor. I believe that this resolution will be a good first step towards that goal. It will begin developing an internal staffing infrastructure that we can build off of and expand in the future. With a staff member, we can invest in areas that fall through the cracks in our voluntary work, allowing us to focus our efforts elsewhere with the knowledge that this critical work is being done. There are tasks that could be filled right now by a staffer.

I hear my comrades who say this is not the best way to implement this or that we’re not ready for a staffer. But the boots are on the ground. We need to grow and we need to grow fast. This to me is the best option we have. We can’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Any mistakes that we make can be recovered from. For any problems that arise, I believe in our ability to solve them. This resolution will strengthen our chapter. Please vote yes.

11

IN FAVOR by Bakari W

Hi, I’m Bakari, a member of the Steering Committee and Chair of the Political Engagement Committee. I urge you to vote YES on this resolution to create a staff hiring committee. Contrary to what some have been saying, voting yes and passing this resolution DOES NOT automatically mean we hire a staffer. It simply allows us to put together a commitee to nail down the specifics of the job description and the official proposal. Then chapter members would make the final decision on that proposal at Local Convention in December.

The main reason I’d like us to have the chance to hire a staff person is to help shore up the gaps we currently have in our capacity, not just by doing the task themselves but by helping to organize volunteer DSA members around those tasks. One crucial task is contacting members who’s membership is set to expire because of a lapse in dues. DSA is constantly bleeding members. The chapter has gone through immense growth in the past year, we’re at ~2850 members in good standing at time of writing, the highest since I’ve been involved. The total number of people who’s membership has expired over the years is 3279. A large portion of these lapses, it pains me greatly to say, are because of people simply forgetting to renew their membership, or an error with their credit card that they don’t notice. Many people don’t know when they lapse. Not all of these memberships could have been preserved with recommitment drives, but we know many lapses are automatic because National DSA’s tech staff track that, and some big membership drops have happened exactly one year after our big membership spikes from people with non-autorenewing annual memberships. Also important to note is that the chapter does not receive any share of annual dues paid by members, only monthly dues. So contacting people with an annual membership to talk with them about switching to a monthly membership gets the chapter additional resources too.

We send new members emails with information about how to get involved or schedule 1:1s, but we don’t consistently call them. There have been successful new member mobilization phonebanks, but they’ve never been consistent across the chapter. A staffer can help organize member engagement/retention phonebanks for chapter volunteers to participate in, and train volunteers to run those phonebanks, permanently increasing our capacity in key target areas where we’ve chronically lacked capacity. Membership size, dues and engagement levels are bottlenecks that affect all of the chapter’s work, so making improvements here can foster a cycle of growth and energy that compounds on itself. We could absolutely set up a similar structure purely with volunteer labor like we normally do, but it likely would take longer and go through more fits and starts. Time is of the essence for these membership-related tasks because 2026 will likely see a large influx of members, and any non-autorenewing annual memberships from the massive membership spikes this year will start to expire.

There are also some administrative tasks that require institutional knowledge that people have been chipping away at over time. But they may lack relative urgency and get deprioritized or just get dropped when there’s turnover in a role. By directing consistent staff capacity towards projects (e.g. making a unified archive of resolutions and meeting minutes from before our current wiki records begin) we could ensure they get done in a way we currently can’t.

These ideas still need to be fleshed out and turned into an official proposal, and this resolution gives us the chance to do that.

I’ve had a front row seat for 3 years to all of the things in our chapter that are held together with duct tape. They’d probably still be held together with duct tape if we hired a staffer but I think it’d be significantly more duct tape :slight_smile:

So please vote YES on this resolution so we allow ourselves the option to hire a staffer at Local Convention. Thanks!

12

AGAINST by Amada L

I’m voting no on this resolution for a few reasons:

  1. It is not feasible for a part-time staffer position to raise $26,000 to sustain their own salary, let alone fundraise beyond their salary for expenses like office space. If looking solely at average membership dues share, this would require the staffer to recruit at least 40 members a week across their 20 hours of work. Having done similar work in my (nonprofit) day job, fundraising takes quite a bit of time, including cleaning and setting up the lists for these recruitment and stewardship calls. Setting metrics for a year, when a staffer is likely to require some onboarding time and their success also depends on our chapter’s capacity to manage them, seems unrealistic.

  2. I understand the resolution’s goal of increasing our chapter’s capacity because 1:1s, cleaning up lists for outreach, onboarding new members, and setting up membership meetings take time. From, again, my day job experience, I would be cautious to consider these entirely as “administrative” types of work. The first point of contact with an organization is an important one, as is the ability to hand off this relationship. We may run into the same capacity concerns if a staffer cannot plug new members into the chapter’s existing working groups because members are the ones creating and sustaining that infrastructure. I think it’s worth examining what the specific capacity challenges are and if there are other, more targeted approaches we can take to address them. If it’s cleaning up lists, for example, could that be a specifically funded project we hire a member to do? If it’s some steering committee duties, could we explore stipends? If much of our time is spent finding meeting space, what about securing a consistent venue partner? These are just off the top of my head, but my point is that we would benefit from defining the different capacities we require as a chapter to achieve our goals, and a staffer may not be the best blanket solution for these challenges.

  3. If the staffer’s main metric of success is to fundraise more for our chapter, my primary question is, why? Are we currently lacking funds to do what we need? The resolution itself doesn’t make this clear. I don’t disagree that more funds generally means we can do more, but I would also like to see our chapter create more ways for members to participate in our budgeting process so that we know what these funds are going to and why.

None of this is to say I’m completely opposed to staff as an idea for the chapter. I just don’t think it makes sense in this context the way this resolution has framed it. Our capacity challenges are real, whether how much money or time we have, and I’d like us to explore that more concretely and identify our best solutions.

13

IN FAVOR by Michael M

Comrades, I urge to vote in favor of this resolution so that we can more efficiently dedicate time and resources toward member recruitment and retention. Most of us work full time jobs on top of our volunteer work, hinders our ability to devote adequate time toward additional recruitment tasks and often leads to burnout. Having a part time staffer who’s solely focused on contacting our non-member lists to boost our recruitment and regularly contacting our member list for fundraising efforts will be hugely beneficial to our chapter.

14

AGAINST by Nell G

I oppose this resolution because it is unrealistic about the resources needed to responsibly employ a staffer and it overdetermines the work a staffer would do, including work that should be done by members.

First, the resolution is unrealistic because $26,000 is not enough funds to responsibly employ a half-time staffer. That amount does not include payroll tax costs and any provision for benefits. Further, according to the EPI family budget calculator, a more realistic living wage for even a single adult in the Metro DC area is $31 per hour, not $25 as the resolution puts forward. For an adult with one child, that hourly wage should be $52.50.

Second, the resolution overdetermines the type of work the staffer will do. While one clause calls for a committee to develop a job description, another clause states definitively that “in addition to maintaining the staffer position in future years, fundraising by the staffer shall contribute to an Office Fund to go towards obtaining an exclusive physical location for the chapter to use as a base of operations,” implying that much of the staffer’s time will be focused on fundraising. Outreach is a core component of organizing, which is work that should be done by members. We should focus on supporting our Member Engagement Committee to build up the capacity to do more of this type of work. A staffer could help coordinate this, but should not themselves be spending their time “fundraising for their salary.” Our mass work will raise salaries and much more, if we keep building up our collective organizing capabilities.

I’m not opposed to the concept of a staffer, but I do not think this resolution is the right way to do it because it binds us to unrealistic plans. As a staffer for a union myself, I understand the value of paid staff who have time and training to support critical functions of our movement organizations. However, we need an approach that fully evaluates the appropriate role and functions for a staffer for our chapter. I believe that assessment and design process should take place in a more open and deliberative manner.

15

IN FAVOR by Amanda G

We should get a chapter staffer! Great idea

16

AGAINST by Max H

I’m asking my comrades to vote No on this resolution.

I’m open to hiring chapter staff in the long run, but I want to acquire an office space for cadres first.

17

IN FAVOR by Tim S

We should hire a staffer, it will make a huge difference in our ability to do basic listwork and member engagement. I and others have tried for years to make this work standardized and sustainable, and while a lot of progress has happened thanks to dedicated volunteers in adcom and MED, there’s still a long way to go. Having a staffer with clearly-designated duties will let us call through our list to recommit members, and move involved members up the engagement ladder. We have thousands of disengaged members and an opportunity to chip away at that number with money we have but aren’t using, let’s take it.

18

AGAINST by Jasmin P

I am voting against Resolution 2025-09-GR02: Invest In Party Infrastructure because I don’t believe adding staff is a prudent use of $26,000 of our chapter’s funds right now. I don’t think we’ve discussed enough as a chapter what we want a potential staffer to do for us. The job responsibilities listed in the resolution focus mainly on recruitment, retention, and fundraising. During debate over this resolution and its amendments, I consistently heard the term “experiment” in reference to our chapter hiring staffers. Instead of approaching this like an “experiment”, let’s actually take the time to have several open chapter discussions on what we want from staff and if hiring staff furthers our organizing goals. Outreach, member engagement, and recruitment are important tasks in organizing, no doubt. I’m worried heaping such important responsibilities on one part-time staffer is unrealistic and doomed to fail. I’m not against the idea of hiring staff in the future, but I’m simply not confident that we’re ready right now. We need to put in the due diligence to make sure this isn’t an “experiment”, but a deliberate, assured step.

19

IN FAVOR by Nat S

I support the resolution to hire a staffer. Moments of upsurge in DSA membership don’t come every day, so it’s really important that we make the most of this current political moment by activating our membership list, reactivating our members who are about to expire, and recruiting heavily. A staffer would be vital in doing all of those things. As a Montgomery County resident, a staffer would really help us activate our members in this region and build out our branch organizing. The fact that our chapter has the money to do this right now is really serendipitous. Hiring a staffer is a super good idea and I encourage everyone to vote yes.

20

IN FAVOR by Julia P

Having paid staff would greatly expand our chapter’s capacity to do member engagement and retention, areas where we’ve historically struggled due to the demanding nature of the work and the tremendous number of tasks leaders have to get done on a day to day basis. Political volunteering is tough, and the relatively small number of chapter members who regularly put in time to support the chapter can only do so much. Having the support of a staffer would make it far easier for core volunteers to do their work, both by reducing the burden on them and by bringing in more members to assist in organizing. This resolution is an easy yes vote for me - it seems relatively straightforward that the benefit of staff support would help us stay organized and grow stronger.