ACORN Bankruptcy Filing Raises New Questions and Concerns
FoxNews.com
By Ed Barnes
Published November 09, 2010
While the rest of the nation was out voting last Tuesday, ACORN — the major voter registration organization in cities and among the poor — was quietly filing for bankruptcy in a Brooklyn, N.Y., courthouse a few blocks from its main office.
But despite the bankruptcy filing, many of the group’s critics remain suspicious of the community organizers’ intentions.
Court documents show that ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — suffered a massive loss of public support over the past two years, and that the group and six affiliates now are more than $8.6 million in debt and have only $218,709 in cash.
According to the filings, ACORN took in $46.1 million in 2008. That dropped to $16.2 million last year, and contributions dwindled to just $1.57 million in the first 10 months of this year.
Because ACORN was incorporated as a private foundation, its funding sources have been wrapped in mystery. But this much is known: Its major backers have been labor unions, foundations and corporate philanthropies, as well as dues from members. Government grants are also part of the mix — Republicans released figures late last year that showed ACORN received $31 million in federal funding in the past 10 years — but those grants were hardly on the scale of donations from wealthy foundations like the $2.4 million from JPMorgan Chase or the $1.5 million from Citibank.
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