Greg Basta
Greg Basta joined the NY ACORN staff in 2004 as the Long Island Canvass Director; he then served as the NY Statewide Field Director until the organization’s destruction. He played the same role at NYCC, the NY ACORN successor organization, and then moved to the Center for Popular Democracy, where he has directed CPD’s canvass and “Organizing at Scale” programs. In this interview Greg discusses the details of building a member-canvass program, and how NY ACORN (and then NYCC) was able to convert the member-canvass program into a massive electoral canvass operation that helped build the power of the organization. Greg also talks about experiencing the NYC media circus surrounding the attacks on ACORN, and his subsequent work building NYCC’s field program. He then discusses how the lessons from his work at ACORN informed his work setting up a national canvass operation for CPD.