Posts Tagged ‘ACORN organizing’

Anita MonCrief

‘The People United Will Never be Defeated’: Inside ACORN’s Community Organizing Model

by Anita MonCrief

As ACORN pretends to “dissolve” around the country, internally, there appears to be a mad dash to get out ahead of prosecution. Not surprisingly, ACORN has a history of shutting offices down when an investigation gets too close. For example, in 2004 ACORN’s affiliate Project Vote abruptly closed its national office in Ohio and shipped boxes stuffed with un-cashed checks and paperwork to Washington, DC.

ACORN appears to have honed these tricks and has now decided to re-brand on a national scale. However, given its history, many are skeptical:

“If you want to see whether ACORN is really changing its ways, check to see whether the signatories to those local ACORN bank accounts are changing. When it comes to ACORN, the money is the organization, and the name is just the name.”

In order to operate effectively, ACORN requires little public scrutiny and a lot of lore and misdirection (think registering Mickey Mouse to vote). For 40 years ACORN’s organizing model has survived social revolutions and political upheavals and to understand ACORN a review of the 1970’s “manifesto” of ACORN founder Wade Rathke is essential.

Acorn Organizing Model
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Posted Feb 26th 2010 at 9:13 am in ACORN, Culture, Politics | 71 Comments

Publius

ACORN Document Dump: Year End, Year Begin Mingles Taxpayer Support and Politics?

by Publius

Every year, ACORN hosts a “Year End, Year Begin” (YEYB) meeting for its organizers. We’ve obtained the detailed agenda for the YEYB conference for 2007. Special dinner speakers for the conference include Eliseo Medina, Executive Vice-Presiden of SEIU and Mark Ernst, CEO of H&R Block. As you can see, the conference covers all aspects of ACORN’s or its affiliate’s work. And, that could be a problem for ACORN.


yeyb agenda –

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Posted Nov 24th 2009 at 3:08 pm in ACORN, News, Politics | 77 Comments

Publius

ACORN Document Dump: ‘This Gives You a Private Sector Target’

by Publius

As part of its strategy to build membership from the ground up, ACORN often first focuses on very local, neighborhood issues. ACORN correctly recognizes that if people can successfully organize for change in their own neighborhood, they will be more willing to organize for greater change in the overall community. A manual it provides its organizers suggests focusing on items like speed bumps, street lighting and vacant lots, as examples.

The manual provides a bit of background on the issue, some suggested actions and, helpfully, identifies “targets” for these actions.


Basic Issue Development for Organizers –

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Posted Nov 24th 2009 at 1:54 pm in ACORN, Culture, Politics | 65 Comments