The Headlines for July 30th 2008- My thoughts on ACORN as a member run organization

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The Headlines for July 30th 2008- My thoughts on ACORN as a member run organization

Is ACORN a member run organzation? Is the board in control of ACORN or the other way around!

Well personally, if what we are being told is true The Staff caught this problem and shared it with one Board member, Maude Hurde who agreed after being talked into it by the management team into keeping it quiet.
As far as more fiduciary oversight? Wade organized his board to be a board that acted on his recommendations from day one. It is interesting how for years we were told to tell people “4 african American women from Little Rock Arkansas founded ACORN”.
Today Wade has finally owned up to the truth, he a white, wealthy, upperclass, hack went to Arkansas and after his friend George Wiley passed on proceeded to found, shape, and design ACORN to serve him. He brags that he founded ACORN today. Well guess what? The reputable true grassroots orgs I know of were indigenous developments that were started by residents of directly affected communities. They weren’t founded by some carpet bagger that picked a spot on a map and said I think I will organize this community to build a non-profit. As sad and prophetic as it it might be of what came to pass over 38 years, the modus operandi never changed.
My first drive went down like this. I was told to pick a block of 1000 households and go there and begin recruiting members who would work with me to organize an ACORN chapter. They had never heard of ACORN and they never got a chance to hire me. They had no say in who or how the drive would be structured because Wade designed the drive to be a certain way over a 10-12 week period. THe members would have 4 organizing committee meetings. If the members wanted to have six I was told by my supervisor to cut it off at four. To organize the “members” to want to do it in 4 or 5 tops. I was told to get them to identify an issue that was winnable and small. When they wanted to go for something that was a systemic big issue I was told to get them to do something like a speed bump or a stop sign. Then I was told they would do a big meeting and then they had to do an action. Regardless of how they felt about it. Regardless of what was going on inthe community. I was told to have the officers identified before they were elected so even though at the big meeting elections were called for, it was really to be an acceptance of predetermined outcomes. This is the big rub abd it has everything to do with why the board did not have oversight. ACORN has always been about predetermined outcomes. Go and read Gary Delgados book about ACORN. It was that way when he left and it is that way now. How can that be considered a member run organization. It isn’t it never was. Iwas organizing a year before my mmembers were asked if they wanted to hire me.. That is a little ridiculous. I organized them for a year and then asked the bord to hire me? Seems like I was hired whether they liked it or not.

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New York Times Article Wade busted!

Funds Misappropriated at 2 Nonprofit Groups

By STEPHANIE STROM
Published: July 9, 2008
Two prominent national nonprofit groups are reeling from public disclosures that large sums of money were misappropriated in unrelated incidents by an employee and a former employee.
The groups, Acorn, one of the country’s largest community organizing groups, and the Points of Light Institute, which works to encourage civic activism and volunteering, have dealt with the problems in very different ways.
Acorn chose to treat the embezzlement of nearly $1 million eight years ago as an internal matter and did not even notify its board. After Points of Light noticed financial irregularities in early June, it took less than a month for management to alert federal prosecutors, although group officials say they have no clear idea yet what the financial impact may be.
A whistle-blower forced Acorn to disclose the embezzlement, which involved the brother of the organization’s founder, Wade Rathke.
The brother, Dale Rathke, embezzled nearly $1 million from Acorn and affiliated charitable organizations in 1999 and 2000, Acorn officials said, but a small group of executives decided to keep the information from almost all of the group’s board members and not to alert law enforcement.
Dale Rathke remained on Acorn’s payroll until a month ago, when disclosure of his theft by foundations and other donors forced the organization to dismiss him.
“We thought it best at the time to protect the organization, as well as to get the funds back into the organization, to deal with it in-house,” said Maude Hurd, president of Acorn. “It was a judgment call at the time, and looking back, people can agree or disagree with it, but we did what we thought was right.”
The amount Dale Rathke embezzled, $948,607.50, was carried as a loan on the books of Citizens Consulting Inc., which provides bookkeeping, accounting and other financial management services to Acorn and many of its affiliated entities.
Wade Rathke said the organization had signed a restitution agreement with his brother in which his family agreed to repay the amount embezzled in exchange for confidentiality.
Wade Rathke stepped down as Acorn’s chief organizer on June 2, the same day his brother left, but he remains chief organizer for Acorn International L.L.C.
He said the decision to keep the matter secret was not made to protect his brother but because word of the embezzlement would have put a “weapon” into the hands of enemies of Acorn, a liberal group that is a frequent target of conservatives who object to its often strident advocacy on behalf of low- and moderate-income families and workers.
Wade Rathke said he learned of the problem when an employee of Citizens Consulting alerted him about suspicious credit card transactions. An internal investigation uncovered inappropriate charges on the cards that led back to his brother.
“Clearly, this was an uncomfortable, conflicting and humiliating situation as far as my family and I were concerned,” he said, “and so the real decisions on how to handle it had to be made by others.”
The executive director of New York Acorn, Bertha Lewis, who has been named director of an interim management committee set up to run the national group’s day-to-day operations, said Dale Rathke was paid about $38,000 a year but that none of that money was used to pay back Acorn.
Instead, she said, the Rathke family has paid Acorn $30,000 a year in restitution since 2001, or a total of $210,000.
A donor has offered to give Acorn the rest of what the Rathkes owe, and an agreement to that effect should be finalized in coming days, Ms. Lewis said.
“Now that this is under our watch, we are putting financial auditors in place, legal counsel in place, a strong management team in place to make sure this organization moves forward for another 38 years,” she said. “I will not allow and the board will not allow something like this to happen again.”
But the fact that most of the handful of people who did not disclose the fraud when they learned of it eight years ago still work for Acorn or its affiliates concerns many of the group’s financial supporters.
“We’ve told them that when the process is ended, we’ll have a look at it,” said Dave Beckwith, executive director of the Needmor Fund, which has given money to some of Acorn’s charity affiliates for at least 10 years and was contacted by the whistle-blower in May.
Representatives of some 30 foundations and large donors have been discussing the matter on conference calls and may establish a committee to monitor Acorn’s overhaul of its management and accountability systems.

The Real ACORN - Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now-the myths exposed!

Wednesday, July 30, 2008