LA Philanthropy Watch

The headline and subhead (in a story by Janet Hook and Noam N. Levey) in this morning’s print edition of the Los Angeles Times: “It’s now up to Obama, Pelosi: The healthcare overhaul may rest on his leadership and her power of persuasion.”  That sounds right.

As the President has begun to campaign on behalf of health care reform, and the legislation is under threat from both the left and right flanks of Congressional Democrats, a number of progressive commentators have begun to rally ’round the reform flag.

Last Friday at TPM Café Theda Skocpol (Harvard sociologist and political scientist, whose scholarly focus has included the nonprofit and voluntary sector) called on Democrats of all stripes to get on board with health care reform while the window of opportunity to pass it is still open.

“At the risk of irritating people on the left, this is NOT the moment for ‘progressives’ to demand a public option. Nor is it the moment for either pro-choice feminists or pro-life Democrats to derail reform.”

I emphatically agree with her that there is a critical need now to turn attention to getting the job done (and that her abrasive tone will irritate).

At Mother Jones Kevin Drum links to Dr. Skocpol and suggests, “The current bill isn’t perfect, but the combination of community rating at the national level with an individual mandate is likely to be the beginning of the end for private health insurance as we know it.”

At The New Republic Jonathan Chait thinks we’re suffering from myopia about the historical nature of this legislation. He objects to Jane Hamsher on the left, John McCain on the right, and the editorial board of the Washington Post in the middle. “It’s natural to focus on improving a piece of legislation whose details remain in flux. The problem comes when the desire to improve becomes the sole focus for evaluating it. Nearly any of the great political advances in American history, viewed from ground level, looked like a pastiche of grubby compromises and half measures. At some point the imperative is to take the broader view.”  [Editor's note: typo corrected.]

At Think Progress Matt Yglesias notes that (FireDogLake aside) the left is solidly on board with reform: MoveOn.org, SEIU, AFSME, the NAACP, LLUAC, and the liberal columnists at both the New York Times and Washington Post have all endorsed passage of the legislation.

As President Obama campaigns – with an eye on wavering Members of Congress, can Speaker Pelosi round up the votes in the House?  We’ll know soon.

(Image from February rally for health care reform in front of Los Angeles offices of Anthem Blue Cross.)

This June 2008 video features Dennis Hathway, president of the Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight,  and Alejandro Ortiz from the Community Redevelopment Agency.

Fun facts (from video):
Number of billboards in Los Angeles: 11,000
Number of billboards that are illegal: 4,000 of the 11,000 total
Annual revenue from huge billboards: $1.34 billion
Annual municipal fee: $186 per billboard

Post #4 – When the decision finally came to break away, California ACORN leaders reached a consensus – without discord or dissent.

• “The level of controversy had become a significant distraction for us,” said Schur, who said members raised the idea of forming a new organization at a statewide board meeting in Oakland in October.  (“California ACORN breaks off into new nonprofit group,” Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times, January 13, 2010)

In reading this LA Times’ account of the founding of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, I was intrigued by the reference to the October 2009 board meeting.  Roughly three months had elapsed between the meeting of the state board of ACORN and the launch of ACCE.  That is not a lot of time to reach a decision to break away, and then do everything required to get a new nonprofit up and running.

Furthermore, I would have expected thorny disagreements about severing ties with the national organization.  Wouldn’t community leaders who had been affiliated with ACORN for many years be resistant to leaving?

When I sat down to interview Amy Schur in February, I anticipated hearing that at least a faction of loyalists had opposed the proposal to split off from ACORN.

Instead, I learned that while these engaged activists had invested much of themselves in California ACORN, they reached consensus about breaking away without protracted disagreement.

Amy Schur advised me that these community leaders (all volunteers – “They don’t get a dime”) put in a huge number of hours every week – in addition to jobs and families and everything else in their lives.  Many, she told me, say that “ACORN is like their second family.”

“It was extremely painful,” she said of the decision to break away. “It took a while to get there.” But the state board, she, and other staff members all came to agree that leaving ACORN and going it alone was best.

When I asked about dissenters, she replied that there was a “united front.”

“The work on the ground,” kept the group the group focused on what was most important: serving ACORN members.

“It speaks well to the principles we’re grounded in,” she said of the unanimity about continuing the organization’s work in low- and moderate-income communities.  “It is a tribute to ACORN.”

“We never strayed from our mission.”  She suggested that Wade Rathke should get some credit for that steadfast focus.  Leaders are in neighborhoods, not in board rooms.  They remain grounded in principles important to them.

“We worked very hard to keep our organization democratic,” she continued.  “I think it helps significantly when it comes to making difficult decisions.”

As it turned out, the decentralization of ACORN – alluded to in September 2009 as a reason California ACORN offices wouldn’t close – ensured a smooth transformation of the organization into the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (much as Illinois ACORN transformed into Action Now).  Those offices (now ACCE offices) stayed open, of course.

Democratic decision-making and autonomy at the chapter level, plus an unwavering focus on neighborhoods, made the break from ACORN – and birth of ACCE – possible.

(The image is a photograph taken in a small community in San Luis Obispo County by ghindo via Flickr.)

Previous posts in this series (after an interview with Amy Schur):

• Third post: California ACORN’s Choice: Stay with ACORN or Go It Alone
• Second post: Simmering Dissent Within ACORN Preceded Break Up
• First post: The Birth of ACCE: First Post in a New Series

Post #3 – As ACORN’s continuing turmoil encumbered the California chapter, an alternative – breaking away – became more compelling.

On September 19, 2009 – just over a week after the first of the undercover videos had been released – P.J. Huffstutter and Kate Linthicum reported in the Los Angeles Times (“ACORN scaling back or shutting down in many cities”) that ACORN offices across the country had been shut down; cities without an ACORN presence – where there had been one before – included Chicago, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, and Omaha.

There was no ACORN office in Chicago because Illinois ACORN had broken away from the national organization nearly two years earlier and been transformed into Action Now.  Madeline Talbott, the leader who had initiated this transformation, offered an above the fray perspective on the continuing turmoil roiling ACORN.  While empathizing with ACORN’s leaders (her former colleagues), she expressed a sigh of relief at not being stuck in the mess that ACORN was still mired in.

“I’m so relieved not to be part of the organization anymore, and so sad because they are trying to clean things up.”

At that point California ACORN showed no signs – at least publicly – of bolting from the national organization.  Amy Schur (lead organizer of California ACORN at that time; now executive director of ACCE) expressed confidence that California ACORN’s 12 offices would remain open, remarking for the Times’ report that membership had increased and funding was stable.

Membership and funding were closely linked for ACORN because, as Ms. Schur explained to me when we spoke on February 2, individual membership fees were a primary source of funding.  Active members of California ACORN, including all community leaders serving on city and state boards, paid dues of $10 a month.  Many members, she told me, had their dues deducted automatically.  So this was a reliable source of operating revenue.  (And much more significant than the federal dollars that Congress cut off following the hidden camera controversy; she advised me that in 2008 only 7% of California ACORN’s funding – money for foreclosure prevention – was from the federal government, while the figure for ACORN nationally was roughly 10%.)

During our interview, she noted that at ACORN (a national organization with state chapters) some functions were centralized, while others were left to the states.  She described this division as “an interesting mix,” while noting, “There was tremendous autonomy around program,” for the states.  Each chapter’s elected community leaders set the direction of the organization and its activities.  Every city with an active ACORN chapter had a board; representatives of each board sat on a state board.

In speaking with the Times in September, she had pointed to this decentralized structure as ensuring that turmoil for ACORN in one part of the country would not inevitably lead to trouble elsewhere.

“Our organization is under attack,” she was quoted in the Times’ September 19 report.  “But we’re going to come out of this just fine.”

Whether or not Amy Schur and California ACORN activists had already begun to consider breaking away at that point – they might have noted wistfully that their former colleagues from Chicago were no longer weighted down with ACORN baggage.

This was, in any case, only nine days after release of the first surreptitiously filmed video. By the time of ACORN’s October 2009 state board meeting – as the repercussions from that episode continued to play out – the situation had become “a huge distraction,” Amy Schur told me.  She also mentioned the national organization’s financial crisis and the “brand damage” ACORN had suffered.

Whatever reasons there might have been to stay, the reasons for breaking away had grown more compelling.

Previous posts in this series (after an interview with Amy Schur):

• Second post: Simmering Dissent Within ACORN Preceded Break Up
• First post: The Birth of ACCE: First Post in a New Series

Post #2 -  Amy Schur describes years of discontent with Wade Rathke, which preceded Illinois ACORN’s split from the national organization; California ACORN followed two years later with the launch of ACCE.

“As is often the case at nonprofit groups, one act of a wrongdoing can be a symptom of other problems at an organization.
Acorn has been grappling with questions about the role of Wade Rathke, an exceptionally able and charismatic organizer who founded the charity in 1970 and recruited a talented cadre of young and loyal organizers, many of whom, along with Mr. Rathke, have worked for the organization throughout its entire history. That loyalty is impressive — but it also caused big problems when the organization faced serious challenges.”  (Pablo Eisenberg, “After an Embezzlement, an Advocacy Group Seeks to Regain Trust,” Chronicle of Philanthropy, October 2, 2008 [Subscription required])

When I spoke with Amy Schur, I learned that what Pablo Eisenberg referred to as ACORN’s “grappling with questions” about Mr. Rathke’s role actually began a number of years before May 2008, when the first controversy broke into public view.  Ms. Schur, who has spent more than two decades working for ACORN, was for several years one of ten senior organizers on the Management Council (a group that Mr. Rathke established to advise him).

The portrait of Wade Rathke that emerged from our conversation is consistent with other accounts, such as Mr. Eisenberg’s.  While Mr. Rathke was a talented organizer with the vision to build a powerful national organization, he was arrogant and “increasingly” (a word Ms. Schur used repeatedly in discussing Mr. Rathke’s flaws) he embraced with unshakable certainty “a belief that he knew best” – whatever the situation.  Unilateral decisions – without regard for the views of others, including the experienced organizers who comprised ACORN’s Management Council – became more frequent.

By 2006-07, there was “growing unhappiness among a broad swath of senior staff” at ACORN.  Concerns focused on a “shrinking of decision-making” – with a Management Council that lacked authority – and on “a lack of clarity and transparency,” especially regarding finances.

Amy Schur and others within ACORN organized their own conference in San Francisco to discuss their concerns.  Seventeen senior staff members from across the country attended.  Mr. Rathke was apparently not pleased.  Ms. Schur describes him as coming to regard her as “a threat.”

“He accused me –” Amy Schur begins in answer to a question, and then she stops abruptly and begins again.  “I’ve always had a problem with people who abuse their authority.”  She continues, “For whatever reasons, I didn’t hesitate to speak out.”

Pablo Eisenberg picks up the story here: “Questions about who should set the organization’s agenda were not limited just to the role of organizers and the board. Wade Rathke sought to put the national organization in control of operations of the group’s affiliates. For example, the organization’s bylaws gave him the power to appoint the head organizers of both local and state affiliates.
While local boards technically had the authority to overrule his appointments, they rarely did, according to senior staff members. They say Mr. Rathke refused to accept the decision of the board of Acorn’s Los Angeles affiliate to appoint Amy Schur, widely considered by Acorn insiders as one of the organization’s most capable organizers, as its head organizer. As a result, Ms. Schur left the network. Her departure prompted another highly respected organizer, Madeline Talbott, director of Illinois Acorn, to pull her organization out of the network.”

Amy Schur had devoted 21 years of her life to ACORN – stretching from Chicago and Detroit to San Jose and Los Angeles.  She led California ACORN during an era when its presence grew from two cities to the whole state.  She had also served as ACORN’s national campaign director.  At the end of 2007 she left ACORN or, more precisely, as she told me, “I was pushed out.”

In relating her experience with ACORN, Amy Schur mentioned her work in Chicago with well-known community organizer Madeline Talbott.  (I gathered, though this inference may be mistaken – my notes do not confirm my recollection – that Ms. Schur may have regarded Ms. Talbott as a mentor.)  Ms. Schur’s comment, made in passing, suggested that Madeline Talbott was an exceptional organizer.

At any rate, I suggest that Madeline Talbott may have served as role model more recently.  In press reports this week, New York ACORN is characterized as following California ACORN’s lead in breaking away from the national organization to go it alone.  (”ACORN’s powerful New York chapter left to form the NY Communities for Change on Monday, following the lead of the California state chapter, which in January became the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment with 48,000 members.” – Matthew Bigg, Reuters, February 22, 2009) But (as Pablo Eisenberg’s comments suggest) Madeline Talbott was the trailblazer.  The former head of Illinois ACORN, she split off the chapter (”ACORN scaling back or shutting down in many cities, ” P.J. Huffstutter and Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times, September 19, 2009) to found Action Now at the beginning of 2008.  California ACORN followed (under different circumstances) – with the launch of ACCE – two years later.

Editor’s note: Madeline Talbott also has the distinction of being featured in “ACORN,” a scary McCain-Palin campaign video.  “Obama … moved to Chicago, became a community organizer … met Madeline Talbott, part of the Chicago branch of ACORN … was asked to train the ACORN staff …”

(Image of Action Now protesters in front of Chicago’s National City Bank.)

Previous post in this series: The Birth of ACCE: First Post in a New Series

Post #1 of a series – An interview with Amy Schur provided insights into the launch of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.

The announcement that California ACORN, a state chapter of the national organization, had decided to split from ACORN and form a new organization, ACCE – the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, began by paying tribute to the thousands of Californians living near the poverty level who have “leveraged their significant numbers with coordinated grassroots organizing to achieve victory” in political battles over several decades as members of the California chapter of ACORN.  The statement by Amy Schur praises ACORN and its new leadership, acknowledges the national organization’s past mistakes, objects to attacks by ACORN’s political enemies, and then pivots:

“Nevertheless, those of us who have been working with ACORN in California believe that we can’t wait any longer to be in full control over our destiny.  The leadership and staff that were working with ACORN in California made the decision to break off from ACORN and launch a new organization here in California called Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). The organization will work to advance the mission of organizing and empowering low-income communities, and launch a statewide, multi-year campaign to win key policy changes that will break the cycle of continuous fiscal crisis in the state of California and cuts that hurt ordinary people and their communities.”

I suggested in my initial post on this announcement, “The decision to step away was clearly pragmatic – based on a clear-eyed assessment of how to sustain the level of effectiveness of the group’s community organizing activities throughout California.”  I have no reason to reconsider this assessment; the controversies ensnaring ACORN – represented as three strikes against the organization and, as Amy Schur put it, “a huge distraction” – just weren’t going away, providing ample reason to consider splitting off and starting anew.

But there was a history of simmering dissent within ACORN that preceded the first strike (the May 2008 revelation of the embezzlement and cover-up).  There had been rumblings among senior staff over the increasingly imperious control that Wade Rathke (pictured above) – ACORN’s founder and leader for nearly four decades – wielded over the organization.

On February 2, I interviewed Amy Schur – former lead organizer of California ACORN and now the executive director of ACCE – about the decision to launch ACCE, the history that led up to it, and challenges for the new group going forward.  I followed up my initial post on ACCE with a series on ACORN, beginning with three controversies that enveloped the national organization.  While these posts established a backdrop and offered perspective on ACORN nationally, they diverted us from ACCE.  Now I will circle back and begin (in this second series of posts) to look at the ACORN story from the point of view of the California chapter that has transformed into the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.

ACORN’s presence in California goes back nearly two and a half decades – first in Oakland and Salinas – followed by expansion throughout the Bay Area and then Los Angeles.  Amy Schur led California ACORN during this era of growth.  What she had to say provides many insights into the schism that developed within ACORN and the problems it has struggled to put behind it.

My February 5 post is the prequel to this series.

(Image from a YouTube video of Wade Rathke, ACORN founder, on Fox News.)

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:

• Sixth post: Just What Can We Say on ACORN’s Behalf?
• Fifth post: The Filmmaker’s Invisible Art – Editing to Tell a Story
• Fourth post: Conservative Activists’ Sting: The Undercover Videos
• Third post: Mickey Mouse Registers to Vote (as a Democrat)
• Second post: Three Strikes – A Mighty Grassroots Group Goes Down Swinging
• First post: California Chapter Splits from ACORN to Form New Group

Post #6 – A look at ACORN’s good works.

The controversies that have engulfed ACORN in the past two years – the embezzlement and cover up, the allegations of voter fraud, and the hidden camera videotapes – have overshadowed the organization’s accomplishments over the past four decades.  The news media has not made much of an effort to step back and gain a balanced picture of this grassroots group.

“That’s what’s so tragic about what’s going on,” Amy Schur, formerly California ACORN’s chief organizer and now executive director of ACCE, told me when we spoke earlier this month.  She noted that there are few effective organizations working on behalf of low and moderate income people.

“Acorn is now well known, but what most Americans know about it is wrong, based on controversies manufactured by the group’s long-time enemies,” John Atlas and Peter Dreier suggest (”The Acorn Scandal Offers Key Lessons to All Charities,” Chronicle of Philanthropy, December 10, 2009).

What has ACORN accomplished?

ACORN has been highly effective at organizing families who possess neither wealth nor influence.  These folks join together to make better lives for themselves.  Often – perhaps most often – the focus of ACORN’s efforts is on the immediate neighborhood.  “ACORN’s primary work,” notes Barbara Osborn of Liberty Hill Foundation, “which takes place in low and moderate income neighborhoods, helps residents build organization and develop community leadership so that they can work effectively as a community to take on quality of life issues.”  Better lighting, repaved streets, revitalized parks, textbooks in their children’s schools – each of these issues might be a cause to rally around.

In December, Scott Gold reported in the Los Angeles Times (“A good move for South L.A. neighborhood,” December 22, 2009)  on a campaign that began 14 years ago with the concerns of a young immigrant from Jalisco, Mexico, a mother whose two daughters suffered from asthma, nose bleeds, and a variety of other respiratory problems.  When she started knocking on doors, she found that these ailments also afflicted other children in the neighborhood.  She suspected that the heavy metal plating factory across from the school was the problem, though officials assured her that it posed no health hazards.  (More recently, the company has been subject to fines and criminal prosecutions related to hazardous wastes, airborne pollutants, and illegal dumping.)

A decade and a half later, after this concerned parent joined forces with ACORN and eventually become president of her neighborhood chapter, the Times’ report suggests that a settlement may be near – with the factory moving into an industrial area.

ACORN wages more high profile battles as well – stretching beyond local neighborhoods, including successful efforts (in California and elsewhere) to raise state minimum wages and for cities to adopt living wage ordinances.  ACORN has won campaigns for affordable housing and against predatory lending practices and foreclosure scams.  And (of course) ACORN has registered more than 2 million voters in the last three election cycles.

Its successes on behalf of low and moderate income people – at the expense of banks, insurers, and polluting companies, among other powerful interests – is the reason it has generated so much opposition.  Any fair-minded assessment of ACORN must include acknowledgement of these successes.

While ACORN has been slandered by its fiercest critics – it has certainly stumbled.  A report by Scott Harshbarger, which was commissioned by ACORN and characterized as a whitewash by critics, paints a damning portrait of the organization.  My next post in this series will highlight the Harshbarger report.

Previous posts in this series:

• Fifth post: The Filmmaker’s Invisible Art – Editing to Tell a Story
• Fourth post: Conservative Activists’ Sting: The Undercover Videos
• Third post: Mickey Mouse Registers to Vote (as a Democrat)
• Second post: Three Strikes – A Mighty Grassroots Group Goes Down Swinging
• First post: California Chapter Splits from ACORN to Form New Group

Post #5 – Seeing is not always believing.

Initially I had no intention of devoting more than one post to the hidden camera videotapes – but reviewing the San Bernardino tape several times (for my previous post) has offered occasion to reflect on the issue of selective editing.

On my first viewing of the San Bernardino video in September 2009, the ACORN employee’s foolish talk (about an escort service and a shooting) was so outrageous that I wasn’t concerned about quotes being taken out of context.  In fact, I was loath to spend even a moment giving the matter a second thought.  I had seen enough: case closed.

But, in watching the video again and considering the broader picture, I have come to appreciate that context is critical.  Film editing, often referred to as the ‘invisible art,’ is essential to storytelling.  And the ACORN videos were edited to tell a story.  Unless we are confident of the integrity and good judgment of James O’Keefe and his allies, we can’t trust what we see.

Edit out, for instance, “Let’s role play,” or, “All right, if you guys are going to spin wild tales, so will I” and everything portrayed on tape looks different.  Is it unlikely that any such exchange took place?  Perhaps.  But consider another possibility raised by Appendix D of Scott Harshbarger’s report, which suggests that the staff member captured on tape was suspicious of the story she heard, fearful for her safety, and responded by spinning an outlandish story; after persuading the trio to leave with a neighbor, she locked up the office and left.

Cast in this light, the encounter begins to look more like bullying – with the activist-provocateurs intimidating a woman who responded by playing along with – even joining in – their outlandish storytelling.  To make sense of this, consider a thought experiment: Imagine an accomplished manager (perhaps a woman with an MBA or JD and experience in the corporate world) who finds herself alone in an office with a trio boasting of their criminal plans – crazy plans.  She might experience fear in such a situation, yet succeed in presenting herself in a confident, polished manner because her professional persona is second nature to her.

I know nothing (beyond what I’ve seen on this tape) about the employee at the San Bernardino office.  But it appears that she lacked the experience and presence of mind to respond as we would expect of someone possessing a broad repertoire of professional skills.  Would playing along in a fearful situation be a wildly irrational response?  Would it be understandable?

Remember, this employee did nothing to advance any illegal activities – she just offered foolish talk and posturing.  Might she have been telling the threesome what she thought they wanted to hear, while hoping for the chance to get them to leave?  (Might an unedited version of the tape reveal bullying?  Or anxiety and fear?  Or anything else that would change our interpretation of what we see?)

Based on a selectively edited videotape, it is impossible to say for certain.  And that’s just the point: unless we can trust what we see – which requires us to trust the videographers and post-production editors of the video – we have no reason to accept the story as presented.  And there just isn’t any reason to put our trust in Mr. O’Keefe and company.

Yes – the video shows unprofessional behavior (condemned by Bertha Lewis).  Yes, ACORN should take steps (as Ms. Lewis announced) to assure that all employees are well-trained to present themselves professionally.  But – contrary to the story that James O’Keefe and his media allies on the right have told – we have no reason to draw any conclusion about ACORN’s aiding and abetting any criminal activity.  That and other broad-brush conclusions are stretched well beyond what we see in the edited videotapes.

(Image of Karl Rove on Fox News via YouTube.)

Previous posts in this series:

• Fourth post: Conservative Activists’ Sting: The Undercover Videos
• Third post: Mickey Mouse Registers to Vote (as a Democrat)
• Second post: Three Strikes – A Mighty Grassroots Group Goes Down Swinging
• First post: California Chapter Splits from ACORN to Form New Group

Post #4 – The third controversy ensnaring ACORN is the most infamous – the secretly recorded videotapes.

“My name is James O’Keefe.  On August 7, 2009, Hannah Giles and I took our ACORN investigation to San Bernardino, California – one of the most highly foreclosed and economically desolate areas in the country.
Hannah posed as the prostitute, seeking to traffic in underage girls from El Salvador.  I posed as the up and coming local politician, who wanted to use illicit sex money from the underage girls to fund my future Congressional campaign.”

With this voiceover – accompanied by a strutting Hannah Giles playing dress-up as a streetwalker – conservative activist / provocateur James O’Keefe introduces a video, filmed surreptitiously at the ACORN office in San Bernardino – one of six videos released beginning on September 10, 2009 on BigGovernment.com and heavily promoted by Fox News after the pair visited ACORN (and ACORN Housing) offices in San Bernardino and seven other urban areas (Baltimore, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, San Diego, and Washington DC).

As the video continues, Mr. O’Keefe advises us that the part-time worker the pair encountered in the ACORN office says she has had experience running an escort service.  We see her on camera saying,

“And, I ran a service, yeah …”
…
“I have some experience in, in, in how not to get caught.”

Mr. O’Keefe says the staffer also related how she had shot her husband.  We see her on tape saying,

“I shot him.  I shot him…”— Hannah Giles can be heard asking, “In self-defense?”— The ACORN staffer replies, “Yeah.”

This is enough, a mere 54 seconds into the video, to get a flavor of the dynamic duo’s undercover investigation / performance art.  Some quick points, based on observation, news accounts, and Scott Harshbarger’s report: The videotape was highly-edited – as the other released tapes appear to be.  We don’t know what was said in between the edited clips we see.  Unedited videos have not been released.  As we have learned subsequently, the undercover investigators were thrown out of a number of ACORN (and ACORN Housing) offices; no video has been released of these encounters.  Voiceover soundtracks were added after the videos were filmed. Mr. O’Keefe, who appears in all released videos dressed as a pimp, actually appeared in each office with button down shirt and slacks.  Ms. Giles wore the same streetwalker get-up at all the venues.  The videographers do not distinguish between ACORN, a 501(c)(4) community organizing group with local chapters across the country, and ACORN Housing, a separate 501(c)(3) that provides counseling for low and moderate income homebuyers.  Three of the released videos capture only ACORN Housing employees.  Finally, note that none of the ACORN staff or volunteers actually proffered any assistance to the poseurs.

While the videographers are hardly paragons of journalistic integrity in a quest for truth (as James O’Keefe’s subsequent brush with fame would attest), the tapes still present us with a damning picture of ACORN.

Indeed, ACORN has acknowledged as much.  In a September 16, 2009 interview with CNN’s Rick Sanchez (see accompanying video) in the aftermath of the tapes’ release, ACORN President Bertha Lewis says of the clips, “Pretty horrendous, isn’t it? … I mean, this would curl anyone’s hair. And it was outrageous, it was indefensible, even though we know these tapes — no one has shown totally unedited tapes, because you don’t see tapes where they were thrown out of ACORN offices. You don’t see tapes where people are told, you know, we can’t help you.”

Ms. Lewis, interviewed with Congressman Darryl Issa on Fox News Sunday a few days later, reacts to Chris Wallace’s suggestion that she had attacked Fox News when the videos first surfaced.

“Well, what did I do?  Immediately those folks were terminated.”

And in an exchange seconds later continues, “… And what did I also do? Make sure that we have an independent review, make sure that we suspended any walk-in activities so we could review what worked, what didn’t work.
In instances those folks were thrown out. I have an obligation to my board, to my members and to my other employees that actually did practice professional, good high standards. Those folks cannot work for me.”

In addition to the staff firings and Ms. Lewis’s attempt to get out in front of the story with media appearances, ACORN commissioned an independent inquiry of the circumstances surrounding the videos, evaluation of the management and governance reforms that ACORN began in June 2008, and proposals regarding ACORN management, oversight, and governance.

The resulting report by Scott Harshbarger refers to the video controversy as “the third strike against ACORN.”  The aftermath of this controversy was devastating.  In the wake of the public ridicule heaped on the group, the U.S. Census Bureau severed its relationship with ACORN, the U.S. Senate voted to deny HUD funds to ACORN , the House of Representatives voted to strip funding from ACORN, foundations pulled their funding (decried here and here), and ACORN’s natural allies in the nonprofit world fell silent.

The San Bernardino video, which provided the basis for this post, can be found here.

More in my next post.

Previous posts in this series:

• Third post: Mickey Mouse Registers to Vote (as a Democrat)
• Second post: Three Strikes – A Mighty Grassroots Group Goes Down Swinging
• First post: California Chapter Splits from ACORN to Form New Group