Mark Madere

Mark Madere did IT work for CCI and ACORN from roughly 2000 to 2008, based in the national headquarters in New Orleans. He later worked as a contractor for ACORN International. In this interview, he talks about the day to day of his work doing back-end work to support the organization, including supporting a growing communications department and new media work starting in roughly 2006. He also shares memories of the campaigns against H&R Block and Sherwin Williams, such as the work he did to create an email system to clog the inbox of the H&R Block CEO, which he credits with ultimately winning the campaign. He also discusses the attacks from the right: he had to watch Fox News round the clock so that he could reboot the website server whenever they talked about ACORN.