WADE RATHKE is the founder of ACORN, Chief Organizer at ACORN International, and Author of "Nuts & Bolts", "Citizen Wealth", "Global Grassroots", and "The Battle for the 9th Ward".
Bucharest For the twenty-third year, a delegation from the Organizers Forum made its way to Eastern Europe to meet with groups in Romania and Bulgaria over the coming week beginning in Bucharest. Appropriately, our first meeting was with the well-respected community training and support organization, CeRe and its director, Anda Serban, who despite …
Washington In the 1960s, citizen participation seemed to be coming to low-and-moderate income communities with President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society. Maximum feasible participation was a baseline requirement for local community action programs. In CAPs, one-third of the seats had to come from the lower income constituency, ostensibly being served by the programs. …
New Orleans Michael Kieschnick is a dear friend and colleague of mine over what may now be close to forty years. I first met him when we both served on the board of the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation under Drummond Pike. Our friendship was forged forever during a board retreat. I was skeptical …