A new nonprofit aims to harness the grassroots momentum of Zohran Mamdani’s successful mayoral campaign as he takes office, following a similar path to Mayor Bill de Blasio that sparked corruption investigations and criticism from good government groups.
More than 650 people joined the first hour-long “mass call” Thursday night for Our Time, which is classified as a tax-exempt 501c4 social welfare organization. While technically separate from Mamdani and his incoming administration, the group can fundraise and lobby for his policies. Our Time plans to launch a round of campaign-style door-knocking next weekend to build support for Mamdani’s campaign promises, starting with universal child care.
“ Our mission at Our Time is to continue to grow the movement that we began building so that we can win, implement and defend the affordability agenda,” Jeremy Freeman, the new executive director told participants on the call, which was available in English, Spanish and Bangla.
The use of nonprofits to support mayoral issues is not new in New York City. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg also utilized a nonprofit, the Mayor’s Fund, to promote the public-private partnerships central to his agenda.
Our Time is more reminiscent of de Blasio’s Campaign for One New York, which became embroiled in protracted state and federal investigations over the role the mayor played in its fundraising.
While prosecutors never charged anyone from the de Blasio administration with wrongdoing, both the Southern District of New York and Manhattan district attorney’s offices issued memos admonishing the de Blasio administration for his fundraising practices and for soliciting donations from people with business before the city seeking favorable treatment.
Our Time organizers — all of whom are former Mamdani campaign volunteers – said they are studying those previous efforts to avoid pitfalls.
I’m curious what other people think of this development. Obviously, it would be a hell of a lot better if Mamdani was supported by a revolutionary party, so those 100,000 volunteers could be funneled into that, but that is not the case.
seems just like the groups that popped up after Bernie’s campaign and never did shit
They draw comparisons to Bill De Blasio and an org that formed after his victory in the article and how they became the target of the justice department for pay-to-play tactics. I wonder how much recruitment the DSA does inside these volunteer networks that form around their candidates and how many new members they gain out of it.
The comparison to the DeBlasio Mayorial Fund seems like a pure threat of lawfare from Capital. I’d say the comparison is bullshit but the article later implies that the allegations against DeBlasio were bullshit. They even admit that Blomberg had a similar set up.
I wonder how much recruitment the DSA does inside these volunteer networks
Probably very little active recruitment, but a fair amount of passive recruitment. For this sort of coalition project, you show up and represent your org well by doing good work towards a common goal.
Most of the active recruitment DSA does is trying to activate their massive supply of paper members.
What specific groups are you talking about? Like the modern DSA fits that description and it definitely has done some things.
This case also seems critically different because Mamdani actually won.
ngo-fication of struggle
So instead they will do the hard work for Democrats, just as Bernie’s and AOC’s volunteers did
could do some good things, probably won’t. definitely isn’t revolutionary.
so, same as Mamdani himself.
Obama famously shut down all his campaign shit instead of doing anything with it. They could get people to clean up trash on their block once a month and that’s probably a win as far as america goes.
So disgusting to pearl clutch about this as corruption in the age of super PACs.
Is it like a DSA front group to collect people who aren’t socialists? The article says “They plan to team up with the NYC Democratic Socialists of America’s child care working group on the effort”
I suspect they would prefer some term like “Coalition” but you’re pretty much correct. IDK how much of it is DSA vs other groups.
