Discussions of internal structure are often maligned as being the least of an organization’s concerns. As the crises of capitalism evolve and accelerate, what use is it to discuss the role of a branch, the difference between a working group and a priority campaign, or the need for this or that committee?
The reality is that well-organized internal structures are crucial. Rational and accessible chapter structures help new members find and participate in chapter work, and clearly defined roles for chapter bodies provide leadership with clear expectations. It is important that we have a common understanding of the roles of our various bodies to make sure they work effectively and that their purposes are clear to new members. When a chapter’s bodies are logically and consistently organized, the chapter is more effective at growing itself and its capacity to deploy its membership to the task of building a revolutionary socialist party to confront capitalism and fascism.
This article discusses a vision for the function of the lowest body in Chicago DSA, the branch.
The Structure of Chicago DSA
Branches
At its lowest level, Chicago DSA is divided into five branches – four territorial and one based on “a common interest”. The territorial branches divide the city into four parts: the North Side Blue Line, the North Side Red Line, the South Side, and West Cook County. A person is a member of a geographic branch by virtue of residing in its assigned territory. The interest group branch is called the Labor Branch, and all members of Chicago DSA are eligible to apply for membership. The Labor Branch works to “help socialists build unions, push labor leadership left, make the labor movement accountable to the rank and file” (Labor Branch Manifesto).
The chapter’s bylaws describe branches as being “responsible for promoting and implementing CDSA policies and programs.” They further state that the branches are “not autonomous entities and must seek full chapter approval for outward facing political work” (Article VII, Section 5, emphasis added). The Labor Branch has been granted higher autonomy by the chapter’s Executive Committee and General Chapter Meetings. As a result, it functions far more like a working group or campaign than the other branches. For that reason this article excludes the Labor Branch when referring to “branches” and the term should be read to mean “geographic branches”.
Working Groups & Campaign Committees
Above these branches are Chicago DSA’s working groups and campaign committees (often called priority campaigns). These bodies are officially created at the sole discretion of the Executive Committee, but in practice they are frequently chartered at the chapter’s quarterly General Chapter Meetings through resolutions drafted and voted on by the chapter’s membership. Working groups and campaign committees, once chartered, are relatively autonomous bodies capable of engaging in outward facing political work on behalf of the chapter within the scope of their charters. They can generally host town halls, create flyers and petitions, contact electeds, and otherwise interact with the public without approval from the EC.
Executive Committee & the General Chapter Meeting
At the top of Chicago DSA is the quarterly General Chapter Meeting. According to the bylaws, the GCM is the “highest policy-making body” in the chapter (Article IV, Section 2). Between GCM meetings, the Executive Committee is empowered to make decisions that are ratified by the membership at the next GCM (Article VI). These two bodies are the most powerful in the chapter. They share the authority to establish and dissolve all lower bodies and are responsible for guiding Chicago DSA’s activity and direction.
Other Committees
The chapter also currently has three standing committees which help facilitate certain areas of its work: political education, membership engagement, and communications. These committees help do the basic administrative work of the chapter.
A Vision for Chicago’s Branches
Our vision for the branches is rooted in part in the text of the chapter’s bylaws and in practicality. First and foremost, the branches are meant to serve as non-autonomous bodies responsible for “promoting and implementing CDSA policies and programs” (Article VII, Section 5). In other words, the branches are responsible for doing the work of the chapter as determined by our General Chapter Meetings, the Executive Committee, and the chartered working groups and priority campaigns. In our view, a branch should not be deciding on its own work and political vision, but rather should strive to serve the needs of the higher bodies.
The North Side Blue Line (NSBL) branch’s newest steering committee has worked over the past several months to organize its branch under this principle. Prior to recent elections, most of Chicago DSA’s branches were relatively aimless. The NSBL, for example, had a single member on its steering committee prior to the July 2025 election. Prior to this summer, none of the branches did more than host a single monthly meeting (usually used for general political discussion rather than substantive organizing) and sporadic phonebanking events. Meanwhile, chapter projects like our Fix the CTA and Unite + Fight campaign committees were responsible for hosting their own canvassing events of which there were only a small handful between January and June of 2025.
Most of the members of NSBL’s current steering committee were identified by the previous term’s one-person steering committee to stand up an ad hoc organizing committee in early 2025. This committee quickly began implementing reforms. First, it was noted that most people attending branch meetings were new members without a home inside DSA, so time at NSBL meetings was given over to reports and requests for volunteers from the campaign committees. This facilitated a pipeline from joining DSA to doing work for DSA. Second, the branch’s future leaders realized that campaigns struggled to put on widespread flyering efforts for the same reason the branches’ own events were so sporadic: running such events is a lot of effort for already busy campaign organizers. To combat this, the organizing committee and later steering committee began recurring “outreach” events (tabling, flyering, and phone-banking).
NSBL has found that branch leaders are much better situated than campaign organizers to research local targets for outreach events. They have more time and a deeper understanding of their home territory and easier access to members looking for work to do through the branch meetings. Furthermore, because the branch can draw work from any campaign or working group, there is never a shortage of things to do. As a result, tabling and flyering does not have to be propped up sporadically by particular campaigns as needed but can become standing infrastructure which can be planned once and set to recur regularly (NSBL currently runs three such events, with plans for more next year). This infrastructure can be used as needed by one or more campaigns and is easily retooled for new campaigns.
The benefits of organizing the branch as infrastructure for doing the work of the chapter are two-fold. First, consistent branch infrastructure attracts regular volunteers, who naturally develop as leaders in their area of work. As those budding leaders become more confident and connected in their branch, they can either take over a project (freeing up the original organizer
to do other work) or organize around their own ideas such as other tabling events, socials, book clubs, or fundraisers rooted in the branch. The infrastructure approach effectively develops leaders who can reinforce existing events and facilitate bigger and better projects.
The second benefit is to the campaigns. As a result of the massive growth in outreach events, the campaigns have been able to greatly expand their reach without a significant increase in their labor. Without branch support, Chicago DSA’s Trans Liberation Campaign was able to host three canvassing events in June (centered around major Pride events) to collect signatures to restore gender affirming care at Lurie Children’s hospital. The NSBL was able to supplement their work with a full six outreach events dedicated to distributing the petition in the same time period. As the summer progressed, NSBL outreach events incorporated literature from the Immigrants Rights campaign’s (now International Solidary working group) Boycott Avelo project and Fix the CTA’s call for the state to fund transit to avoid disastrous cuts.
Effectiveness of the Organizing Principle
Organizing the NSBL branch under the principle of “doing the work of the chapter” has had immediate, noticeable effects. More and more new members have shown up to branch meetings. These meetings grew from 10 to 20 people to over 40 monthly attendees, spread out over two locations. Many were new members or longtime members who were becoming more engaged. The new members frequently told us they joined because of our tabling, while longtime members said that they felt lost trying to engage in DSA prior to recent branch meetings guiding them to chapter work.
More concretely, the number of calendar events labeled as “outreach” skyrocketed from less than 10 chapterwide between January 1st and April 30th to more than 44 between May 1st and August 31st. The NSBL accounted for 55% of all of these outreach events, with another 20% held by the campaigns themselves. During the same time period in 2024, 0 such events appeared on the calendar.
The uptick in activity has had measurable effects on recruitment and engagement in the branch. In the month leading up to our last GCM, members of the NSBL branch were more likely to have engaged in at least one Chicago DSA event than any other branch. In that month, the NSBL achieved 19% member engagement, compared to just 13% on the similarly large North Side Red Line branch. Additionally in August, the NSBL recruited twice as many new members as any other branch.
Conclusion
Chicago DSA is lagging behind other large DSA chapters in terms of membership growth. This is in part because we have an undeveloped structure for our chapter, which makes it difficult to recruit and retain new members. The NSBL has shown a path forward for other branches to build the structures necessary to foster new leadership within the chapter at the branch level. New leadership increases capacity and allows the chapter to grow its activities, membership, and ambition.
We envision a future Chicago DSA which rivals (and eventually surpasses) other parties in Chicago for political power in the city–we encourage other branches to follow our lead towards a model which helps build the organization of this future.
