Who We Are
OUR MISSION
We come together to build a financial system for working families, white, Black, and brown, not big Wall Street banks. Our mission is to envision a better financial system together, train activists, cultivate political champions, and deliver policy change to restore the financial sector to its rightful place in service of the real economy. Click here to find out how we do that.
OUR HISTORY
The Take on Wall Street campaign was launched at Americans for Financial Reform in the spring of 2016 out of a broad consensus among community organizations, labor unions, consumer activists, and faith groups that while the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms put in place after the financial crisis were critically important, they simply didn’t go far enough. So we decided to work together to address the predatory economic power of big Wall Street banks and billionaires and build a financial system for all of us. We are now a coalition of over 50 groups hosted by Americans for Financial Reform. While they may not endorse or prioritize every issue, Take On Wall Street members share the goal of building a financial system that works for everyone.
COALITION MEMBERS
ACCE Action, AFL-CIO, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, American Federation of Teachers, Agenda Project, American Family Voices, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Teachers, Americans for Financial Reform, American Postal Workers Union, Beneficial State Foundation, Campaign for America’s Future, California Reinvestment Coalition, Catholics in Alliance, Center for Popular Democracy Action, Communications Workers of America, Consumer Action, Consumers Union, Courage Campaign, Center for Popular Democracy, CREDO, Communications Workers of America, Daily Kos, Demand Progress, Democracy for America, Economic Policy Institute, Franciscan Action Network, Friends of the Earth US, Groundwork Collaborative, Hedge Clippers, Institute for Policy Studies, Jubilee USA, Main Street Alliance, Media Voices for Children, MO Jobs with Justice, MomsRising, MoveOn, The Nation, National Education Association, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, New York Communities for Change, Citizen Action of New York (CANY), The Other 98%, Patriotic Millionaires, People for the American Way, People’s Action, Presente.org, Public Citizen, RootStrikers, SEIU, Strong Economy for All Coalition, UNITE HERE, United Auto Workers, United Food and Commercial Workers, and Working Families Party.
WHAT WE DO
The coalition came together to build a financial system for working families, White, Black, and Brown, not big Wall Street banks. To do this, we train activists, cultivate political champions, and deliver policy change that we believe will restore the financial sector to its rightful place in service of the real economy. We do this in three chief ways:
Popular Education
The Take On Wall Street coalition has embarked on an ambitious program of popular education to train thousands of community organizers, union members, and citizen activists to improve our collective capacity to organize around the financialization of the economy, racial and gender justice, and taking our democracy back from corporations and the super rich. Read on >
Informing the Political Debate
We think each and every candidate running for office has an incredible opportunity to answer that call, to respond to public sentiment. They can do that by demonstrating their independence from Wall Street and promoting reforms to curb Wall Street’s influence over the economy and our government. Read on >
Policy Change
The important work of defending the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act must not be the end of the story. We can dream bigger. We are stepping up the fight to curb the big banks’ influence in Washington and our economy. Read on >
STAFF
Porter McConnell is Senior Director for Take on Wall Street at Americans for Financial Reform. She previously ran the Financial Transparency Coalition, a global network of civil society, governments, and experts working to stop illicit financial flows out of developing countries. At Oxfam America, she advocated for the reform of U.S. foreign aid to promote developing country ownership of aid decisions, as well as advocating for a robust foreign aid budget at the ONE Campaign. Before coming to Washington, Porter was based in Bogotá, Colombia, where she built a network of Latin American NGOs implementing income generating activities to fund their missions. Prior to her international work, she was a legislative aide for a Massachusetts State Senator and a program analyst for a small foundation making grants in education and climate change. She has lived in Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean and traveled in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. She has a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Michigan and a B.A. from Williams College. She has contributed policy analysis to media outlets including NBC News, The New York Times, National Public Radio, MarketWatch, Vox, The Guardian, American Banker, Daily Nation Kenya, and EU Observer.
Ericka Taylor is the Director of Popular Education for Take on Wall Street at Americans for Financial Reform. Immediately prior, she served as a Co-Director of DC Working Families Party, a state chapter of the national organization working to build progressive political power in communities across the country. Ericka has spent the bulk of her career in organizing and advocacy, including positions with Organizing Neighborhood Equity DC (ONE DC), DC ACORN, and Tenants and Workers Support Committee. She has also worked as a program officer with the Public Welfare Foundation and trained young people and youth organizers as the Southeast Regional Program Coordinator for YouthAction. Ericka earned her BA in English from Cornell University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Inland Northwest Center for Writers at Eastern Washington University. She has served on the boards or steering committees of the National Organizers Alliance, Progressive Technology Project, YouthAction, Western States Center, National Priorities Project, La Clínica del Pueblo, and Jews United for Justice.
Annie Norman is the Save the Post Office Campaigner for Take On Wall Street at Americans for Financial Reform. Previously, she served as the Associate Field Director for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan, where she oversaw their statewide field organizing team. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism, and a Master’s Degree in Public Health from the University of Oklahoma. In between obtaining her degrees, she served in the Peace Corps, where she spent two and a half years working on sustainable community economic development and sexual health education projects in the rural farming community of Tierra Blanca de Cartago, in Costa Rica’s central valley. Since then, she has worked nine electoral campaign cycles, and as a sexual health educator and then as an organizer for Planned Parenthood affiliates in Waco, TX, Tulsa, OK, and Detroit, MI.
Tykeisa Nesbitt is the Popular Education Associate for Take on Wall Street at Americans for Financial Reform. She is from Inman, SC, and completed her undergraduate studies at Howard University in the spring of 2022 with a BA in Political Science and a minor in History. Tykeisa has always been heavily involved in non-profit work and advocacy, which led her to apply for an internship with Take On Wall Street in the fall of 2021. After having the opportunity to work in Popular Education, she was not ready to leave and decided to take a summer internship with the AFR Policy Team. After having two great experiences, Tykeisa had the opportunity to apply for a full-time role. Everything aligned perfectly, and now she is the Take on Wall Street Popular Education Associate.
Jessica Church is the Advocacy and Political Manager for Take on Wall Street at Americans for Financial Reform. She was previously the Director of State and Local Campaigns at End Citizens United/Let America Vote where she oversaw non-federal electoral work with a focus on protecting democracy, expanding voting rights, and reforming campaign finance laws. Jessica has also worked at the National Women’s Law Center, the South Carolina Democratic Party, and on a presidential campaign. She holds a Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School and lives in Washington, DC with her husband. When not working, she enjoys spending time in Central Virginia exploring food, wine, and the outdoors.