We organize our work through different types of groups we call Chapter Bodies. These include boards, committees, and working groups, each with a unique role.
- Boards help shape the chapter’s political direction in key areas like elections and political education.
- Committees keep everything running smoothly behind the scenes, handling things like coordination, communications, and chapter logistics.
- Working groups are where we organize around specific issues and campaigns, like housing, immigration, labor, and feminist organizing.
Learn more about each group below and see how you can plug in. If there’s something you’d like to organize around and don’t see it listed here, don’t worry! Members can start new chapter bodies at any time. You can read about the process in our bylaws, fill out the form here if you’re ready, or reach out to the Steering Committee for support.
Boards
Education
education@dsasf.org
The Education Board is composed of three members who lead chapter organizing and political education efforts. They host regular open meetings, organizer training workshops, and a recurring “What is DSA” session for new members that you can find on the calendar. The primary goal of the Education Board is to develop members into more effective, thoughtful, and socialized people.
The Ed Board serves both new and long-time members, with a focus on sharing knowledge and training concrete skills.
Electoral
electoral@dsasf.org
The Electoral Board, elected by the chapter, is made up of 5 members who coordinate our political campaign work, including city propositions, potential candidate endorsements, and ongoing support for elected socialists.The Board also leads our efforts supporting member-elect Jackie Fielder, and have weekly meetings with her staff during our Monday night meetings.
The Electoral Board meets every Monday at 6:00 PM on Zoom to guide our work advancing socialist change in San Francisco. All are welcome!
Labor
labor@dsasf.org
The Labor Board works to raise class consciousness and improve the material conditions of workers in San Francisco. We are made up of socialists working to build a militant labor movement — through class struggle unionism, labor education, workplace organizing, and picket line support — and believe in being resolute in our socialist identities.
Strengthening the rights of workers must be at the forefront of a strong labor strategy, and we are committed to winning material gains for workers in SF.
Committees
Chapter Coordination Committee
ccc@dsasf.org
The Chapter Coordination Committee (CCC) is dedicated to helping grow and mobilize the membership of the chapter; from the person on the street to activist. We do this by onboarding new members, provide tech and administrative support, and work with all committees on various projects.
If you care about how DSA is run and your fellow comrades, or just want to learn how to be a better organizer please contact us to get involved.
Social Committee
social@dsasf.org
The DSA SF Social Committee organizes regular events for both chapter members and the socialism-curious to connect and let loose. From happy hours to picnics and coffee chats to baseball games, Social Committee is all about strengthening bonds inside and outside the chapter and providing low-pressure opportunities for the public to learn more about DSA! Social Committee typically organizes 2-3 events a month.
Working Groups
Ecosocialism
ecosocialist@dsasf.org
The Ecosocialism Working Group seeks to build a socialist future that is free from oppressive capitalist and colonialist systems of exploitation that harm human and environmental health. We reject the idea that green capitalism will solve current or future environmental crises, and strive to decarbonize, decommodify, decolonize, and demand a radical Green New Deal.
Current priorities include: Free Muni Full Service, Green Buildings For All, indigenous sovereignty, political education, and utility justice.
Homelessness
homelessness@dsasf.org
The Homelessness Working Group is an open committee supporting San Francisco’s disenfranchised communities. We organize politically around issues impacting the unhoused and formerly unhoused, aiming to build collective power and end systemic housing exclusion. We also fight the ongoing criminalization and mistreatment of unhoused people in our city.
You can get involved by helping with their regular weekend sessions to prepare meals or distribute essentials to the community, or by joining their bi-weekly meetings.
Immigrant Justice
immigrantjustice@dsasf.org
The Immigrant Justice Working Group (IJWG) is an open committee leading immigrant rights efforts in San Francisco. We fight detention and deportation through know-your-rights education and grassroots campaigns that aim to abolish oppressive systems.
Our goal is to build power and solidarity with immigrant communities and allied movements to create a San Francisco that defends the rights of all immigrants.
We meet bi-weekly on Thursdays from 7–8 p.m.
Palestine Solidarity and Anti-Imperialism
palestine-solidarity@dsasf.org
The Palestine Solidarity Working Group (PSWG) seeks to build upon our chapter’s past anti-imperialist work and provide a local organizing home for practicing solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance to Zionist occupation and their fight for liberation and decolonization, as well as a place to concretely tie internationalism to DSA SF’s other local organizing efforts. It supports mass mobilizations for Palestinian solidarity, joining coalition marches and other efforts.
Tenant Organizing
tenants@dsasf.org
The Tenant Organizing Working Group works to organize, mobilize, educate, and support tenants. The class contradictions in housing is especially heightened in the Bay Area by extreme speculation the housing market, which has been commodified to the point that its value is almost entirely derived by its value as a financial instrument. As housing is primarily a tool of capital “investment” and extraction of surplus value from working class tenants, organizing tenants is one of the most direct methods of contesting the concentration of power in San Francisco.
Tenderloin Healing Circle
healingcircle@dsasf.org
A healing circle resembles a group therapy session. Participants sit in a circle, with a facilitator leading the session in a discussion on a vulnerable topic. Unlike other discussion groups, there is no cross-talk, the space is provided for participants to share what is real for them. The therapeutic benefits of the circle are both in the ability to share and the opportunity to listen deeply to what others are going through.
For the space able to hold participants’ vulnerability, certain community agreements are laid out at the start of every circle:
– Confidentiality
– Take care of yourself, do not ask permission or apologize
– Speak from the heart, say it ugly
– Use I statements
– Share what you can without drowning
– All emotions and their expressions are valid
– If you would like to give feedback, ask first
At every meeting we also provide food, often home-made by a comrade. Many folks in the community come just for the food and don’t join the circle.