Hi! I’m Jordan. I’m running to be one of the at-large local council members
because I want our chapter to focus in two areas: building the strength of membership
and focusing committees, caucuses and working groups on programming.
I’m new to organizing. I’ve been involved with DSA since 2017. Before moving to
New Orleans a few months ago I organized with DSA in Philadelphia. I was involved in
the fundraising committee and helped the committee promote local dues and
fundraising events. Since joining this chapter, I’ve worked with the Healthcare for All
and Direct Service Committees. I’m also a comrade with a Masters in Public
Administration. This means I have an academic background in building service-oriented
organizations. I’ve completed practical coursework in strategic planning and have
helped non-profit organizations create mission and vision statements, which are
projects the chapter and committees are moving toward.
As at-large local council member I’ll build the strength of our membership. We’ll
do this by growing the size of our chapter, constantly improving the skills of our
membership, and expanding our membership to reflect the New Orleans working class.
To grow our chapter, I’ll work with the membership chair on existing mobilizing
efforts. I’ll work with the chair and the mobilizers to look for areas to grow and improve
the program as well as measure its impact. We’ll have a more purposeful way of moving
folks from attending a meeting to joining committee work. I’ll work with committees,
caucuses, and working groups to imbed mobilizing into the planning process for
programming. Phonebanking for important committee events is one way to do this. I see
organizing and offering participation opportunities to new, unengaged, and
underengaged members as one of the priorities in the chapter.
Understanding the work of committees is important, I pledge to work with the
other at-large member to have a regular presence on each body of the chapter. I will be
available to general membership whenever possible, such as office hours, online,
before, or after meetings.
Our chapter has grown dramatically over the past year and to continue our
success we need to build the capacity of our committees. To do this, I’ll work with
committees to look for ways they can share workloads, resources, skills, best practices,
and feedback on programming impact. This will allow committees to direct as many
resources as possible to programming. I’ve heard from committees that I’m involved in
that this is an area where the chapter needs to develop. This work would build the
capacity of the chapter, but it does not currently fit into the programming of a single
committee, caucus, or working group. I will work with committees to design
programming that builds members’ skills and working class power simultaneously. This
way our chapter will build horizontal leadership.
The most important thing we as a chapter can do is to continue to build our
membership, both by expanding our membership to better reflect the entire New
Orleans working class, and by continuing to engage and develop the skills and capacity
of existing members of the chapter. The best way to do this is to support and elevate
the work of committees, caucuses, and working groups so that they can focus on more
programming.