Proposal to Standardize Chapter Endorsement Criteria and Expectations

Whereas

• A local organization is defined as any group of individuals organizing around a political issue in the Triangle area and surrounding regions
• NCTDSA has historically experienced reputational and political benefit from forming coalition bonds with many local organizations (cite D2P, PYM relationship)
• Many local organizations seek NCTDSA’s endorsement, leveraging our social media presence or name recognition
• Endorsement is often requested ambiguously and can refer to: promoting events to the public via social media, email, or in-person flyering; encouraging turnout to events internally within our membership; including our logo to a flyer; or having our account included as a collaborator on an instagram post.
• The politics of local organizations vary widely (cite SAlt zionist. Indivisible being pro-cop?)
• Due to the implications of publicly associating with the politics of local organizations, the current endorsement process requires vote by steering committee, who are authorized to speak on behalf of the chapter
• Vote by steering committee, while easily handled asynchronously, requires inefficient back-and-forth communications between those managing requests and those managing the actions that follow a chapter endorsement, especially in cases when the request in ambiguous

Therefore be it resolved

• A tiering of endorsements that includes what we are willing to do in response is established as follows
  • Direct Support Tier: We believe this event has direct benefit to the chapter or our political goals and will direct chapter resources towards increasing turnout and facilitating a successful event.
  • Affiliate Tier: We are politically aligned with the organizers of the event and have no issue associating our name with them. This includes being an Instagram collaborator on a post, and including our logo on any flyers.
  • Reshare Tier: We do not have a political stance with respect to the organizers, or there is no clear organizer to speak of. We are willing to promote the event on social media.
• A standardized list of organizations whose events we are willing to endorse with an associated tier, forming an allowlist, is established, initially consisting of Affiliate Tier status to events by the following organizations: UNC SJP, Duke ASJP, NCSU SJP, NCSU’s Divestment Coalition, NC Palestinian Youth Movement Network, Triangle NC Jewish Voices for Peace, Party for Socialism and Liberation Triangle NC, Triangle Tenant Union, Duke Respect Durham, NCSU YDSA
• Steering Committee will maintain the allowlist of organizations and their corresponding tier in a location visible to chapter members and pass it to subsequent SC terms for review
• Chapter Member-Leaders receiving endorsement requests from organizations in the allowlist should continue to share the request with officers for visibility, but do not need explicit approval to act in accordance with the respective tiers. Chapter members, who are not Member-Leaders, will share endorsement requests from organizations, in the allowlist or otherwise, with a Member-Leader to proceed with.
• The allowlist can be amended by SC vote or amendment to this proposal
• Where possible, endorsement requests for organizations that are not in the allowlist should be made with the corresponding tier being requested.
• Endorsement requests for organizations that are not in the allowlist will continue to be raised to Steering Committee for a vote, but if granted, will be given a corresponding endorsement tier that will apply only to the instance of the event being requested, not all subsequent events by the requesting organization