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:

• One Nation, formerly known as the Alliance for America’s Future, is the advocacy arm of the Republican Super PAC Senate Leadership Fund. One Nation has received funding from the Concord Fund and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (GPS). In 2024, it gave $4 million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. One Nation’s president Steven Law is also president of Crossroads GPS, was the former chief legal officer and general counsel at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and served as deputy secretary of labor during the George W. Bush administration.
• Hands Off NYC is a coalition of labor unions, faith-based organizations, and left-of-center groups that protest and advocate against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities within New York City. Its listed partner organizations include 350Brooklyn, Climate Defenders, GreenFaith, the Immigrant Defense Project, and the Incarcerated Nation Network. Others include local chapters of the Indivisible Project, the NYC chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, the New York chapter of the Working Families Party, and the Communist Party USA(CPUSA).
• Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce was a right-of-center advocacy group founded in 2011 to coordinate among right-of-center and libertarian organizations associated with Charles and the late David Koch. The group ceased operations in 2019, when it was replaced by Stand Together. By 2013, Freedom Partners had granted at least $1 million to the Center to Protect Patient Rights, the 60 Plus Association, the American Future Fund, the Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee, the LIBRE Initiative, the National Rifle Association, and the American Energy Alliance.
• HOPE CommUnity Center is a left-of-center Florida-based service provider and advocacy group that is involved in immigration, education, LGBT, and other issues within the state. In 2020, it made grants to several activist groups including the Farmworker Association of Florida and the Hispanic Federation. In 2024, HOPE CommUnity Center received funding from the Ford Foundation, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, NEO Philanthropy, the Tides Foundation, and the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund.
• Aafia Foundation is an advocacy group based in Maryland created after the arrest and conviction of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani-born neuroscientist who was charged with the attempted murder of U.S. government and military personnel in Ghazni, Afghanistan. The Aafia Foundation has collaborated with Muslim advocacy groups including the Council on American-Islamic Relations(CAIR) and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). It participated in the January 2024 pro-Palestinian March on Washington for Gaza. Other participants included the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), the Muslim American Society (MAS), the Muslim Student Association-National (MSA), the Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA), the Muslim Ummah of North America (MUNA).