ACORN Institute - MN

The ACORN Institute trains and empowers organizers and community members to build a movement for justice from the neighborhood level up. Community members knock on the doors of their neighbors, discuss with them issues of importance and get them involved in community-wide effort to influence changes that residents themselves have identified to be important. Often, people first become involved to tackle tangible neighborhood issues like safety or facilities for children. At the same time, we unite a diverse constituency of low and moderate income people across the country to address issues including better public education, ending predatory lending and stopping foreclosures, and fair immigration reform, affordable housing, living wages and more. Community leaders come together and use direct action, democratic participation, research, and public events to talk directly to decision-makers about needed changes. ACORN Institute is currently in the midst of a 2008 Voter Participation Program, which aims to register more than 1.2 million low-income and minority voters while engaging hundreds of thousands of infrequent voters and building community relationships based on issues of concern to our organized community members.