Chapter 10-I-j
The Division of Dues


Anyone with organizational experience surely knows that control of an organization’s money is essentially control of the organization itself. Our goal is to build a truly democratic organization in which The People, the citizen-membership, control the organization’s money through a truly democratic hierarchy of representative Democracy.

We must give great consideration to how dues money is divided among the various levels of the structural hierarchy. We believe that each level should have a portion of these dues under its own direct administration, with the largest share being administered by the National Congress. The manner in which dues money is divided will determine the strength and cohesive unity of the organization on the one hand, and the democratic decentralization of power on the other. We must strive to attain a dialectic balance between these considerations.

As we consider how dues should be apportioned to the various levels, we must directly confront the democratic paradox of autonomy, which we discussed in chapter 5c. It might appear to some to be more democratic to keep control of more money at lower levels of the hierarchy, so that individual citizen-members have more control over how their money is spent. Yet more autonomy in control of money at the lowest local level will weaken the unity and cohesiveness of the organization as a whole, and will therefore at least partially negate the advantages, and indeed the very purpose, of organizing. When the power of 'the whole' is diminished too much by guarding the power of 'the parts', then the power of ALL, (whole and parts alike) is diminished far more than can be justified by the relatively smaller gain in power by 'the parts' alone.

To draw the extreme example for the purpose of illustration, say that 100% of all dues money was kept by the Local Groups. This would obviously give individual citizen-members the most direct control over their money. Yet what we would then have is a collection of autonomous Local Groups with little (if anything) to unite their efforts into higher and more powerful levels of organization. To draw the greatest extreme, the highest degree of autonomy for each individual would be to keep her or his money, to not organize our resources at all, which obviously negates the entire concept of organizing to gain power.

To draw the extreme on the other end of the scale, if 100% of dues money went directly to the organization’s national level, the organization would potentially be very strong, but it would likely find it difficult to maintain itself as truly democratic, with so much power and control held at such a distance from The People.

We believe that a proper dialectic balance between these extremes must be established. We believe that dues money should be apportioned in a manner that gives every level of the organization an adequate budget to administer, but maintains the purpose of uniting resources to higher levels to gain the most power for the organization as a whole.

We think that a 20-15-15-50 split, with 20% of dues administered by the Local Groups, 15% by District Congresses, 15% by State Congresses, and 50% by the National Congress, might be a workable formula. 15-15-15-55, or 20-20-20-40, might also be considered. To analyze the effect of these numbers, we have to look at how they would work in actual practice.

Let’s assume hypothetically that the organization has grown to an intermediate level of growth and power. Let’s posit that a given State, with 13 Congressional Districts, has organized a citizen-membership population of 150,000. Let’s posit that this State has an average Local Group size of 500, so it has 300 Local Groups. Let’s assume, for the purposes of this discussion, that the membership population is equally distributed among the various Congressional Districts, so the organization has about 11,500 citizen-members, and 23 Local Groups, in each District.

Let’s examine how the money would flow, with these 150,000 citizen-members paying dues of $5 per month, if a 20-15-15-50 split were used.

Each Local Group of 500 would raise $2500 per month. Each would keep $500 per month in its own treasury, to administer as it sees fit, so $150,000 per month (statewide) would remain in the 300 Local Groups. These Groups could then use this money to work together directly with other Local Groups, both within the State, and/or nationally, to undertake projects directly, without the intervention of any higher level in the hierarchy. This provides a significant degree of independent autonomy at the Local Group level.

Each District Congress would accumulate $8,654 per month in its treasury, so all together $112,500 per month would accrue to the District Congresses in that State. At this level of growth and dues revenue, each District could maintain an office and paid staff to manage, coordinate, and organize activities within the Districts. At smaller levels of growth and revenue, it might be necessary for District offices to be largely volunteer staffed, and/or subsidized from the budget of the higher State and National levels. If we posit a modest cost of $4,000 per month to maintain an office and adequately (though parsimoniously) paid two person staff, a District would need 5330 citizen-members (paying $5/month, with 15% accruing to the District) in order to maintain an office at that staffing level.

At our hypothetical state-wide population level of 150,000, the State Congress would accumulate $112,500 per month. This would provide enough to maintain a well-staffed State office, (say around $15,000-$17,000 per month, for rent, utilities, and payroll costs for a 6 person staff), with some $95,000+ per month left over to use to initiate projects within the State, to coordinate with projects initiated directly by the District Congresses and/or Local Groups, and to coordinate with projects initiated at the National level.

Using the same figures as at the District level, of $4000 per month to maintain an minimal office and adequately paid 2 person staff, a State office could be minimally self-supporting when the organization’s population in that State grew to 5330 members, (nearly 30 times smaller than the 150,000 member population level we are discussing here). If we accept that State offices, at a minimal staffing level, will be necessary and crucial to the orderly growth and management of a well run organization, State offices would have to be subsidized from the National budget at smaller population levels.

Under this 20-15-15-50 dues split, (@$5/month), the citizen-members of this hypothetical State would contribute $375,000 per month to the National Congress treasury. A good portion of this money will flow directly back to lower levels, through expense subsidies where necessary, through grants to finance and coordinate State and/or District level projects, and through the general publicity and other benefits that will accrue to projects at lower levels from National level projects. But in the process of being centralized, and then flowing back, a strong element of cohesiveness in the projects and activities of the organization as a whole will be created.

If we posit that at least $100,000 per month will be needed to maintain a National Office, (to pay the President and Executive Staff, as well as for rent, utilities, supplies, etc), the organization would need to reach a population level of at least 40,050 citizen-members nationally (with dues at $5/month, and a 20-15-15-50 split), to sustain a National Office at that staffing level. At that relatively small population level, (40,050), it’s not likely that a large enough paid National Executive Staff would be needed to require $100k per month to sustain. $25-30k per month, (or so), enough for rent on an office and a 10-12 person staff, might very well be adequate. All these numbers are highly hypothetical, of course, but we want to put these figures on the table to get people’s thinking at least roughly 'zeroed in' to realistic scenarios.

When we imagine how the citizen-members’ dues money will be used, to augment, facilitate, and initiate organization projects at every level, and when we remember that the citizen-members will have collective democratic control over their money at every level, we can see that organizing the money to higher levels provides a greater degree of unity and cohesiveness to these resources, and thus produces more influence and power to the whole organization, including to all its parts.

Our primary ‘business’ will be communications. (The Means of Communications are the means of power). Communication at higher levels empowers communication at lower levels. A National communications effort concerning any given issue, undertaken through national media and means, will coordinate and empower State, District, and Local level efforts, through local media and means, in support of that issue.


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