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woke up still thinking about the #dsa100k recruitment drive lol so gonna write a few thoughts out, if this is annoying to you please mute this thread!
a lot of this stuff was discussed on the twitch stream (??) last night with @workerism @JonahFurman @jackcalifano @lodgepolepines @HondaWang so i& #39;m definitely going to be stealing/reiterating many of their thoughts
firstly i think the goal (growing our membership org) is very good and necessary. if people disagree with that on its face i& #39;d like to hear why. one criticism i hear is that dsa is not a perfect org yet (not even close!) and should focus on its internal problems before growing
this is def true but 1) i think we can do both at the same time and people are actually trying to 2) we can& #39;t wait for the org to be perfect to grow (will never happen) 3) we need more people in the org and to do work to improve internal functionality
i also am hearing criticisms of recruitment tactics. one of these big issues is social media, people think that& #39;s shallow recruitment. but anyone can go to the dsa website and join online at any time, there& #39;s no litmus test or anything you have to do except join
all the social media posts are just encouraging people to do a pretty easy thing (join the org), and i think we can assume that people would not join the democratic socialists of america if they didn& #39;t somewhat agree with the ideology
of course if that& #39;s not true now then that& #39;s always untrue, and that& #39;s a separate issue from the recruitment drive, which does nothing different or new from regular joining except provide some guidance and urgency and friendly competition
i also have heard people talk about the make up of dsa (with regards to race, gender, age, geography, etc) - all extremely valid points that dsa needs to improve upon. but we can& #39;t do that if we stay the exact same size. we need to grow! more on that here: #more-240">https://dsaorganizer.org/2019/07/03/why-recruit/ #more-240">https://dsaorganizer.org/2019/07/0...
i& #39;ve seen people talk about "strategic recruitment," ie in certain industries. i think that& #39;s a great idea and there& #39;s nothing stopping anyone from recruiting that way. all the drive does is encourage members to recruit 3 people - how you recruit and who you recruit is up to you
i& #39;ve also seen people say they don& #39;t know how to make the ask or talk about dsa. i think dsa could do a better job of helping people through that, but i also think it& #39;s just not that deep. why are you in dsa? just talk about that, and go from there
we& #39;re not asking for someone to give us their first born child, we& #39;re asking them to pay a small amount of dues money to an organization that shares their values that could potentially materially improve their life. this is on tuesday if you need support https://actionnetwork.org/events/dsa-recruitment-drive-kickoff-and-100k-pledge-training-2?clear_id=true">https://actionnetwork.org/events/ds...
but i think most of these things just come down to fear - people are afraid to make the ask, people are afraid dsa isn& #39;t good enough, people are afraid they& #39;ll seem weird. that isn& #39;t a dsa problem, that& #39;s a personal problem that all organizers need to work through at some point!
and i& #39;ll just say, on a personal note, that yes, i am winning the recruitment drive. i haven& #39;t appreciated the subtweets about "shallow recruitment" by the same people who are *also* sharing their join links on social media
there are people with far more followers than me (rob delaney, 1.5 million!) who have shared their links and recruited far fewer people. i do not think it& #39;s a question of twitter followers as much as a question of who we are and the work we do
i hope that people see me and the work i do for dsa and respect it enough to say, ok i think i& #39;m gonna finally join. i& #39;m not going to be made to feel embarrassed by that. i& #39;m proud that i& #39;ve done a good job of showing how important dsa is and encouraging people to join me
maybe social media is dumb, but it& #39;s also real. what you don& #39;t see from my tweets are the many DM conversations i have been having with people who have wanted to join but have had something holding them back, and also of course with people in my real life!
if you& #39;re a dsa member, you already have the skills to ask someone to join, you just need to harness them. and i encourage you to do so during the membership drive because it takes a lot of pressure off you!
instead of having a more serious convo with stakes that feel higher, you can be like, "the weird org i& #39;m in is making me ask you NOW and also i really want to win this hat!" it makes it feel way more chill while also lighting a fire under your ass. now is totally the time!!!!
and of course, if you& #39;re thinking about joining dsa, we would absolutely love to have you! and in fact, we NEED you. please join! http://bit.ly/mindyDSA ">https://bit.ly/mindyDSA&...
