The Harshbarger Report: ACORN’s Roadmap for Reform?

The Harshbarger Report: ACORN’s Roadmap for Reform?

Post #7 – Scott Harshbarger’s report “An Independent Governance Assessment of ACORN: The Path to Meaningful Reform” poses steep challenges for ACORN.

I have defended ACORN against the untruthful, trumped up attacks of its political enemies.  Many charges the right wing echo chamber has flung at ACORN are scurrilous and unsupported. I have looked at the other side of the ledger – at the good works for which the organization can take credit.

But, while ACORN is not a criminal enterprise and, in fact, has much to be proud of – its failures are not close calls: they are conspicuous, systemic shortcomings that have damaged the organization.  In this post I will comment on challenges posed by the report commissioned by ACORN and conducted by Scott Harshbarger and Amy Crafts.   “With our recommendations in hand, ACORN now has a roadmap for reform.  Our experience tells us that these recommendations, acted on with a sense of urgency, are crucial to reclaim, maintain, and strengthen ACORN’s ability to serve its members and constituents.”  Is ACORN capable of righting itself?  Or to put it another way, is ACORN’s “reform leadership” up to this task?  This is not at all clear.

Proskauer, the law firm of Mr. Harshbarger (former attorney general of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) and Ms. Crafts, was retained by ACORN to examine the hidden camera controversy, to evaluate management and governance reforms undertaken after the embezzlement was revealed, and to offer recommendations going forward.  (I do not intend to review the report: it is 18 pages long with 39 pages of appendices.  I commend it to any readers interested in learning more about the nature and depth of ACORN’s financial, governance, and management challenges.  It is an easy read – and will convey a sense of the magnitude of ACORN’s problems better than any quotes I feature in this post.)

The report’s findings related to the hidden camera videos are representative: “While some of the advice and counsel given by ACORN employees and volunteers was clearly inappropriate and unprofessional, we did not find a pattern of intentional, illegal conduct by ACORN staff; in fact, there is no evidence that action, illegal or otherwise, was taken by any ACORN employee on behalf of the videographers. Instead, the videos represent the byproduct of ACORN’s longstanding management weaknesses, including a lack of training, a lack of procedures, and a lack of on-site supervision.”

ACORN’s defenders may be tempted to embrace the first sentence as a vindication and the second sentence as a call for a bit of tinkering – adding a training program and writing an employee manual, for instance.  I think this conclusion, in the first instance, suggests that the bar has been set way too low.  In the second instance, I believe (and I am confident that Mr. Harshbarger and Ms. Crafts would agree) that a more fundamental break with the past is required.

Their report (referred to hereafter as the Harshbarger report) makes reference to ACORN’s “reform leadership” – which must navigate the organization’s change in direction – in the statement of the second task:

“Evaluate the management and governance reforms that ACORN’s new leadership (the ‘reform leadership’) has developed since June 2008 …”

The hidden camera controversy came more than a year after revelations of the $950,000 embezzlement and nearly 10-year cover-up.  This failure was not manufactured by ACORN’s political enemies.

After making reference to the hidden camera controversy (“perceived by many as a third strike against ACORN”), the Harshbarger report continues, “It erupted just as ACORN’s reform leadership was about to complete an ambitious and professionally directed organizational and cultural transformation designed to revisit its mission, reshape its scope and charter, and meet squarely its legal, governance and compliance responsibilities.”

I would be remiss not to note evidence that strike one – the theft and concealment – appears to at least one observer, Wendy Kaminer, to have prompted a circling of the wagons, as much as a commitment to reform (“ACORN: A Cautionary Tale” September 24, 2009; see also her “ACORN and the Ethics of Leadership” December 8, 2009, both on the Atlantic’s web pages).

Perhaps a fundamental transformation was in the works, but the committed reformers just hadn’t yet had time to pull it off (as the report asserts).  ACORN’s history suggests why this might be regarded skeptically.

The executive summary continues, “The serious management challenges detailed in our report are the fault of ACORN’s founder and a cadre of leaders, who in their drive for growth, failed to commit the organization to basic appropriate standards of governance and accountability.”

We learn from the report that among the cadre of leaders on board when things went awry, many are still around, “The reform leadership, many of whom also served in the Rathke era, is now reaping what Rathke sowed, in combination from the fallout from their own failure to question or challenge him, and their inability to transform ACORN quickly and completely after taking over.”

The report continues, “There is a general consensus among leaders, organizers, and observers that, under the prior administration, ACORN grew large too quickly, and efforts were not made to grow in a reasonable, cautious manner or with an adequate infrastructure.”  Of course, nothing about ACORN – a tough grassroots group that challenges powerful, entrenched interests – suggests a reasonable, cautious manner.  Amy Schur told to me that political organizers committed to social justice are (unsurprisingly) not much interested in management (or, I would surmise, infrastructure).  The Harshbarger report makes the same point.

The report offers nine recommendations; implementing all of them represents a daunting challenge.  Some of the recommendations play to ACORN’s strengths and all the recommendations, taken singly, appear doable.  But the Harshbarger report urges implementation of every recommendation as part of an interrelated set of imperatives.

Taken as a whole, the recommendations call for a fundamental cultural transformation of the organization – requiring steps that rip against the grain – and quickly.  Mr. Harshbarger and Ms. Crafts emphasize that ACORN’s leaders must pursue reform with a sense of urgency.

Why does reform pose such a formidable challenge? First, because there is so much to do – “governance reforms, senior management reforms, financial reforms, structural reforms, and staff investments.”  Second, because there are so many ways that the reform effort could go wrong.

To follow up with the doubts expressed by Wendy Kaminer about reform leaders who were formerly Wade Rathke loyalists: When there is disagreement among the leadership about how fast to push for change or about whether a proposal is a step too far – what happens?  The old guard – savvy enough to have become the old guard – may have the upper hand.  And organizational inertia will be on their side.

Even with a genuine (and unitary) commitment, bringing about a cultural transformation would be a huge undertaking even for the most skillful, seasoned management team.  Is this the team in place at ACORN?

A cultural transformation – requiring “a significant infusion of professional oversight” and a focus on matters such as human resources, accepted procedures, professional development, staff training, and onsite supervision – will require deliberately shifting resources from neighborhoods with pressing needs to administrative infrastructure. This shift will be as grating to committed political organizers as fingernails scraping across a chalk board.  ACORN chapters – in neighborhoods or even whole states – may need to be shuttered as ACORN strives to develop the professionalism missing among staff and volunteers captured in the undercover videotapes.

Change is hard.  Reform isn’t cost free.  ACORN will lose something significant when it implements reforms.  An organization with “a reduced size and scope” is likely to result.

Even if the reform leadership is consistently committed, up to the task, and willing to follow through with tough decisions, the staff closer to the grassroots may not be on board.  Will reform efforts displace the “smart, capable organizers” the report acknowledges and put trained administrators in their places?  If there is room – and resources – for both, will political organizers stay put as change comes?

Lean and mean may be in ACORN’s DNA.  A charismatic local organizer with a passion for changing things in the neighborhood may be a more credible grassroots leader, than a professional nonprofit manager would be.  And such a leader, focused on social justice rather than on a career path (or on following the rules), may make successful organizing possible – even when resources are scarce.  ACORN’s entrenched “culture of hands off management” may be a powerful attraction as well.

I’m not suggesting that ACORN’s reform leadership will fail – but their climb is a steep one.

Update: This is the final post in this series on ACORN, the national organization.

The first post on the launch of ACCE (with perspective gleaned from an interview with Amy Schur) begins here: The Birth of ACCE: First Post in a New Series.

(Photo of Scott Harshbarger by rappaport center via Flickr.)

Previous posts in this series:

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