Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
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| Abbreviation | ACORN |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1970 |
| Dissolved | 2010 |
| Type | Non-governmental organization |
| Legal status | Defunct |
| Headquarters | New Orleans |
|
Region served
|
United States, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, India, Canada |
| Bertha Lewis (2008–2010) | |
|
Budget
|
US$25 Million, 10% federal funding |
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was a collection of community-based organizations in the United States and internationally that advocated for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues. At its peak ACORN had over 500,000 members and more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in over 100 cities across the U.S., as well as in Argentina, Canada, Mexico, and Peru. ACORN was founded in 1970 by Wade Rathke and Gary Delgado.
ACORN conducted voter registration drives, as well as working to remove systemic barriers to registration of low and working-class voters. The Republican Party regularly alleged that it committed voter fraud, but few cases have been found or prosecuted. The organization conducted its own audits and cooperated with investigations of employees, referring some cases to law enforcement.
ACORN suffered an extremely damaging nationwide controversy beginning in the fall of 2009 after two conservative activists secretly made and released videos of staged interactions with low-level ACORN personnel in several offices, portraying them as encouraging criminal behavior. Several independent investigations eventually found the videos to have been partially falsified and selectively edited by the activists, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, and cleared ACORN, finding its employees had not engaged in the alleged criminal activities and that the organization had appropriately managed its federal funding - but in the meantime the organization suffered an immediate loss of funding from government agencies with which it had contracts, and from private donors.
The loss of funds had been too damaging and by March 2010, 15 of ACORN's 30 state chapters had already closed and ACORN announced it was closing its remaining state chapters and disbanding. On November 2, 2010 its U.S. offices filed for Chapter 7 liquidation effectively closing the organization.
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