Letters to the Editor

What You Say

CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS

I have serious problems with the depth and responsibility of your journalism in this piece [Cover Story, "Idealists for Hire," Isaiah Thompson, Aug. 12, 2010]. As a former canvasser and the current employee of an organization that runs a canvass, my opinion is that your article's findings are not truthful. The tone challenges all organizations that run canvasses. You disapprove of how much of a person's donation goes to the canvasser, while simultaneously criticizing how little canvassers get paid. You cannot have it both ways.

The clearest evidence that your article represents inadequate reporting is that you used only two canvasses as a microcosm for all others. To make your job easier, you picked two canvasses that are notorious for how they treat their employees — two organizations that have had multiple lawsuits brought against them. There are scores of organizations that run canvasses and have never been sued, treat their employees well, pay their employees fair wages and ask them to work acceptable hours. You did not even mention those legitimate organizations operating in Philadelphia so you could make your point of trashing canvassing easier.

In the political system we live in, money talks. Donations are community organizing; the two are not mutually exclusive. For honest organizations, those funds that were raised allow programs to exist that directly benefit communities, or for lobbying groups, the money makes each signature it stands behind more powerful.

At Clean Air Council, just like most organizations, employees that are around for months are not fired after missing a quota for just two consecutive weeks. Canvassers are not put in pressure situations where they struggle to save their jobs every week. That would not be effective managing. Every single canvasser at Clean Air Council makes well over minimum wage and no one, including the canvass director, works more than 40 hours in a week.

You claim that "instead of providing a career path for would-be activists and progressive leaders, the canvassing organizations burn out their recruits and move on." I can say from personal experience that idea is completely erroneous. I am now starting a career at an environmental nonprofit, not in spite of my canvassing experience, but because of it.