The Democratic Socialists of America’s $5.2 million windfall

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) continues to feature prominently in the national political conversation, and it is natural to ask how the group is funded. Generally, this is a simple question to answer: the DSA is largely supported by membership dues. These accounted for 87.5 percent of the group’s total 2024 revenues. The DSA’s affiliated 501(c)(3) Democratic Socialists of America Fund received a handful of five-figure grants from donor-advised funds that year as well, but this money represents a relatively minor component of the DSA’s broader financial picture.

A recent court ruling, however, has added a rather large asterisk to this understanding. Earlier this week, Bloomberg Law reported that a federal judge had declared the DSA to be the legal beneficiary of a retirement account held by a longtime New York University sociology professor (David. F. Greenberg) who passed away in 2024. Greenberg was himself a DSA member for many years and paid at least $1,815 in dues to the group during his life.

The dispute involving Greenberg’s estate centered on whether DSA was the successor to an earlier leftist organization called the New American Movement. As InfluenceWatch explains, the New American Movement was one of two preexisting groups (alongside the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee) which merged in 1982 to form the DSA. In 1975, prior to this merger, Greenberg had designated the New American Movement or “any successor thereof” as the contingent beneficiary of his retirement account. Because the primary beneficiaries of Greenberg’s account had predeceased him, the DSA asserted its right to the money. The judge agreed with the DSA, finding that the “wall of evidence” produced though discovery “conclusively establishes that DSA is [the New American Movement’s] ‘successor.’”

Greenberg’s retirement account was valued at more than $5.2 million, which is equivalent to approximately 80 percent of the DSA’s total 2024 revenue of $6.38 million, and exceeds the group’s total net assets that year. For a nonprofit of the DSA’s size, it is an enormous windfall. Though it now claims an all-time high membership count of 120,000, it was just over two years ago that membership declines—combined with unrealistic spending commitments—had placed the DSA on the precipice of a fiscal crisis.

Whether the DSA uses this unexpected bounty to insulate itself from future financial downturns, or spends it in accordance with the “abundance mindset” that some of the groups more clear-eyed members have warned permeates the organization’s budgetary process, remains to be seen. Prudence and sound judgment are not virtues one would typically assign to the socialists.