A New Way Forward is a public platform to transform politics and the economy for the public good, made up of regular people and has no funding from any group. Our mission is to end the dominance of corporate interests in this country so that there may be opportunity and shared prosperity for everyone, including the existence of a vibrant public discourse everywhere - we have made a loud call to break up the biggest banks' powers and to never let them get so big again they can take over our politics and economy. ANWF is made up of the regular Americans who have come together to bring about structural reform of the financial industry and end the distortion of the political process by our largest corporations. What is A New Way Forward? A New Way Forward is a movement of citizens that started engaging with the financial crisis in March 2009. ANWF is made up of local organizers and teams all across the country who have come together to call for real structural reform. If you believe our political and economic systems have become too corrupt, too broken, too dominated by the already powerful and rich -- we welcome you. We are bringing together the grassroots call for change and the most strategic ideas for real structural reform to show Congress that the way it is handling the financial crisis rewards the wrong people, is likely to fail, and doesn’t get at the core structural problems in our economy and politics. ANWF is just beginning, and in our first three months had over 60 local groups organize the first nationally-coordinated and the largest and only non-astroturf protests calling for the break up of the biggest banks. Since then, we have grown through 30 educational forums, close to a hundred thousand signatures and the growing support for our policy prescription for the creation of a more equitable political economy -- no bank needs to be so large they can take over our government and our economy again. Who funds it? Who runs it? Who makes decisions? This project is not funded or initiated by any organization. The website enabling the movement is run by Tiffiniy Cheng and ProsperityAgenda.US. Local organizers make decisions about local events and strategy through a national listserv. The structure is decentralized and open. The individuals who helped to bring the campaign together in our earlier days are Zephyr Teachout, Donny Shaw, Joe Costello, Morgan Knutson (amazing designer), Nicholas Reville, and Tiffiniy Cheng. The individuals and organizations who have signed onto ANWF"s structural reform platform have been instrumental in launching this project. See who is working hard to change the system below. What does A New Way Forward Want? We want Congress to step up to the plate and restructure the financial system. We demand an end to taxpayer bailouts without solutions for working-class America; policies that address the problem of too big to fail; reorganization so that the financial elite who managed us into this crisis are not in charge as we try to fix it, and we believe banks should be broken up—decentralized—and sold back to the private market with strong new regulatory and antitrust rules in place. More details about our goals are on our idea page. What do you plan to do to achieve your goals? The first thing is to bring people together at rallies and forums to show support for each other in the foreclosure and financial crisis and to realize our structural reform platform. We continue to hold small group meetings to develop plans for alternatives like foreclosure and mortgage intervention, public education, bulk refinancing with community and local banks, and pressure on our political process. We will be identifying sponsors of legislation and lobbying to support that legislation once it is sponsored. We also plan to expand beyond the initial 60 groups and hope to have chapters in hundreds of cities around the country. It sounds good, but do your proposals have support from economists? Yes! Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman supports letting the banks be resolved when failing. MIT Professor Simon Johnson, Joseph Stiglitz and Willem Buiter have been leading the argument for reorganization, and Nassim Taleb argued last week in the Financial Times that “nothing should ever become too big to fail.” For more intellectual background, and a full list of supporting individuals and groups, visit our idea page. We started this project when The Baseline Scenario clearly laid out an exit strategy for this economic crisis with the public interest in mind. They made a clear case that structural change was possible and worthwhile for our economic and public well-being. Why is it necessary? Doesn’t Congress know that people are unhappy? All of the responses to the financial crisis have been led by the very people who caused the crisis in the first place. Banks have spent millions lobbying for self-serving “recovery” plans. Nervous politicians worry that nationalization sounds socialist and that our economy must be run by the financial elites. Until people stand up and demand a new way forward, we will continue to spend citizen money on bad practices. Join us!
The Volunteer Organizers Who Fight for a Fair Financial System
A New Way Forward is made up of volunteers all over the country. These people are leading the charge and do an amazing job in their city and in this campaign for a participatory political economy. Many of these people have never organized before -- they just signed up for an event or started helping out in their state. We're already over 11,000 people strong, email us to do something -- tyc at anewwayforward dot org.

Michael Atkin, Paterson NJ Organizer Mike Atkin is a Database Administrator from New Jersey, helps to organize in Paterson & our database!	Mallory, CT Organizer Mallory is an amazing person from Middletown, helps to organize in CT	David Swanson, DC Organizer and blogger of AfterDowningstreet.org ran the DC protest at the last minute.
Frank Bank, San Fran Organizer/PHP Hacker musician, engineer, vagabond, truth seeker and amateur political economist	Juan del Rio and Jeeni Criscenzo Lifelong activists, leading the charge in San Diego	Lou Campagna, Print Designer
Zephyr Teachout, Campaign Coordinator	Winnie Frolik, Pittsburgh and DC! One of the best people I've met.	Chuck Collins, Campaign Advisor senior scholar, Institute for Policy Studies and Common Security Clubs
Adam Lax, new DC organizer social justice activist and aspiring public interest lawyer	Joe Felice, Videographer vlogger on YouTube, and is based in San Francisco	Tiffiniy Cheng, Campaign Coordinator founder of Open Congress and Miro
Anna Berczi, SF Organizer novice organizer, multi-tasker, activist and reader	Kevin Zeese, Baltimore Organizer Director of ProsperityAgenda.US a project of FreshAirCleanPolitics.net	Donny Shaw, Campaign Coordinator professional saxophonist