After joining in early 2025, my first interactions with MADSA left me, Corrin, unsure on what to do next. I attended DSA 101 and joined a few General Membership Meetings to start learning more. I knew I wanted to stay involved in the chapter’s work to advocate for bold, transformative changes to society to build a more democratic and sustainable future. The problem was that I didn’t really know anybody and I didn’t have a clear project to work on. Luckily for me, there was a brand new organizing effort in the Fitchrona area, where I live and work, that gave me the chance to develop my community organizing skills. That effort developed into the first-ever branch of MADSA.
Today, the Southern Dane County Branch, which has doubled in size in the last year, promotes MADSA’s campaigns and goals in the region. We’ve kicked off two priority campaigns to support Francesca Hong’s gubernatorial campaign and to build social connections with the branch. Here’s how we built the branch.
Branch Development
The inaugural meeting of what would become the branch took place in February 2025 at the Verona Public Library. This location was explicitly chosen to be outside of the Madison city limits to draw in suburban members who may struggle to make it to the isthmus on weekdays. Meetings functioned as experiments, a marked contrast to the usual DSA chapter body structure with a direct focus. The priority was getting people in a room together to start figuring out what issues we could focus on in Verona that wouldn’t be suitable for the entire chapter of MADSA. Over multiple monthly meet-ups, a common structure evolved to include report-backs on local politics, reviews of chapter decisions that affect local members, and an article we read out loud and discussed for about 20 minutes at the end of each meeting.
After some initial power mapping, tenant organizing quickly became a priority, especially given the large rent hikes in the area after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. We compiled a list of our allies, such as unions and left-leaning cafes and bookstores. Over the summer, we drafted and executed a plan for posturing for the Queer Liberation March, helping to build visibility for the chapter’s activities beyond the isthmus. We had early successes as two Verona Common Council members attended our meetings, as well as a Saint Louis DSA member who was in the area for work and found the meeting posted on MADSA’s website.
These small examples of autonomous member activity demonstrated we could organize around chapter goals within our region. This led us to think about formalizing as an accountable chapter body. Luckily enough for us, MADSA already had branches in the bylaws, even though as far as we know there hadn’t been any before. The base requirements for branch formation were already met; we already had five consistent members, so we began the more challenging task of creating bylaws for the branch.
We based the first drafts of the bylaws on a those of a branch of Louisville DSA. From there, we tailored the bylaws to fit with the language in MADSA’s bylaws and sought feedback from the Executive Committee to develop a second and third draft. This brought up many interesting questions. What authority should branches have to act independently in the name of the chapter as a whole? What kind of leadership structure should it have? Should the branch be empowered to send a voting representative to the Executive Committee? After a month or so of edits, the Executive Committee agreed to agendize the creation of the branch at the December 2025 MADSA General Meeting. The branch and the chapter agreed to limit the branch to public events supporting the work of chapter bodies. We landed on the usual structure of MADSA leadership by having two co-chairs, and we decided to send a voting representative to Executive Committee. We added plans for our future growth, including creating a steering committee after reaching fifteen average members in attendance. After some debate at the General Meeting, the resolution passed overwhelmingly, and the Southern Dane County Branch became an official chapter body.
With that milestone behind us, we began to put forward a vision for how we could grow as a chapter body. We passed a resolution to commit to two priority campaigns, one internal-focused and one external-focused, to balance limited bandwidth with the need to have meaningful work to drive engagement. This inside-outside organizing model was based on a blog post we read together written by a Boston DSA member. Just after MADSA’s yearly convention, we settled on our two priority campaigns: firstly, to support the chapter’s endorsed candidate for Wisconsin Governor, Francesca Hong, via canvassing in the branch area, and secondly, to organize social events for branch members to build cohesion and get new members involved. Our first canvassing event was a success, bringing in new faces to the group as we knocked about 200 doors. We followed that up with our first social event at a nearby bar. These campaigns are just getting started, and with the branch, there is a ton of potential to make a difference in the areas where our members live and work.
Lessons Learned and Successes
These are the lessons and takeaways that I think are the most important to the branch and MADSA as a whole.
There’s significant value in having a low barrier to entry for new members. Several members attended the branch meetings before getting involved in General Meetings with the complexities of Robert’s Rules, and they’ve told me that they’re glad they did. Having a convenient location with a smaller group of people and easy-to-understand procedures helps get people in the door, and before long these members began joining other chapter bodies, like working groups and campaigns. Once there, they often already knew a fellow branch member and were more comfortable and more likely to keep coming back.
Since the branch membership are all fairly close to each other geographically, it was easy to start forming carpool groups to General Meetings and other events. This helped build camaraderie and saved some gas to boot.
Integrating political education into branch meetings was surprisingly valuable. The choice to read articles together forced us to select short, to-the-point praxis pieces by fellow DSA members from a variety of chapters, caucuses, and online blogs. These pieces provide important, high-yield learning points meant to be shared with other DSA members rather than for an academic or theoretical audience.
Still, not everything came up roses. One of our thorny moments occurred when we elected a branch representative to the Executive Committee; it became quickly apparent that in practice this could lead to some difficult questions. With only a limited membership and single-digit attendance, our representative suddenly had as much voting power on the committee as chapter co-chairs. Pretty quickly, both chapter and branch members began to feel that sending a voting member felt undemocratic. Although a resolution at MADSA’s yearly convention that would have stripped branch members of voting representatives didn’t end up passing, we decided not to send a voting representative for the time being.
We also had some difficulty keeping new members involved beyond the core membership. With relatively infrequent monthly meetings, missing one meeting felt like a big setback. Many members showed up just once or twice. We have addressed this by planning additional events beyond the branch meetings to help keep people coming back. We expect that our branch campaigns will make visitors feel that they are using their time wisely and will drive retention.
Conclusion
Now that the first branch of MADSA has been formed, it’s easier than ever for new branches to be formed. Using our bylaws as a reference, a new branch could bypass a lot of the logistical challenges that slowed us down while formalizing. Especially now that neighborhood groups have popped up all over the city and beyond as ICE OUT organizing has exploded city-wide, there are ready-made networks that a branch can integrate with to bring more members into the chapter and our work. Consider setting up a casual event in your area and help grow a new branch, and by extension, MADSA along with it.
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