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".
St. Louis: Two months before we SEIU Local 100 and SEIU Local 880 had decided to have our 17th Annual Staff/Board Retreat in a battleground state, where we could combine our evaluation and planning of our work with some real time GOTV experience for our leaders and staff. In the luck of the draw Illinois, the …
Nairobi: Perhaps the biggest surprise to me was the pervasive ubiquity of NGO’s – non-governmental organizations – in Nairobi. I had read that 90% of the Kenyan developmental funds come from the “donor community,” but until visiting the city and seeing all of the NGO’s headquartered here for all of Eastern Africa and beyond, I had …
New Orleans: Just about every year my family takes a vacation before the kids have to go back to the rigors of school which is just about family life – or in union organizing what we call a “captive audience” meeting – in other words all of us in one place and space having to …