InfluenceWatch Friday

InfluenceWatch, a project of Capital Research Center, is a comprehensive and ever-evolving compilation of our research into the numerous advocacy groups, foundations, and donors working to influence the public policy process. The website offers transparency into these influencers’ funding, motives, and connections while providing insight often neglected by other watchdog groups.

The information compiled in InfluenceWatch gives news outlets and other interested parties research to use in reporting on significant topics that are often overlooked by the American public.

CRC is pleased to present some of the most significant additions to InfluenceWatch in the past week:

• Global Exchange is a nonprofit that advocates for left-of-center policies on issues such as gun control, environmentalism, and immigration. One of its main projects, the “People’s Movement for Peace and Justice (PMPJ)” advocates on these issues in the context of the U.S.-Mexico border. Global Exchange has received funding from the Ford Foundation, the NDN Collective, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, the Foundation to Promote Open Society, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
• The Fuller Project for International Reporting is a journalism nonprofit that reports on gender equality-related topics and their alleged connection to abortion access, climate change, and economic issues. Its listed media partners include The Guardian (US and UK), the New York Times, the Associated Press, Texas Tribune, Grist, and The New Republic. The Fuller Project has received funding from the Ford Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Arabella Advisors-managed Hopewell Fund, Humanity United, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
• The Beth and Ravenel Curry Foundation is a private grantmaking foundation based in New York City and primarily funded by Ravenel Curry and the estate of Elizabeth Curry. In 2023, the foundation gave over $35 million in grants to organizations that included the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Cato Institute, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and Success Academy Charter Schools. The executive director of the foundation, Emily Cox, previously held positions with AEI, the Federalist Society, the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and Americans for Prosperity.
• The National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) is a left-of-center advocacy group that organizes campaigns to address issues related to homelessness in the United States. One of its main projects, Bring America Home NOW, claims to have over 680 partners including the NAACP, the Maryland Progressive Democrats of America, the National Organization for Women, and Racial Equity Partners. NCH has previously received funding from other nonprofit organizations including the Arabella Advisors-managed New Venture Fund, the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, and the National Football League Foundation
• The Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) is an environmentalist group that advocates for the development of weather-dependent energy projects, mostly focused on solar power. The BEF has donated to several other nonprofit organizations including the American Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, Forterra, the National Audubon Society, and the Climate Center. In April 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Biden Administration awarded a $56 million “Solar for All” grant to the BEF to provide solar energy programs to “low-income, tribal, and disadvantaged communities” within the state of Idaho.