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:

• Coconut Brat PAC is a super PAC created to support the 2024 presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris. The PAC’s name allegedly refers to a quote Harris attributed to her mother: “I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” The term “brat” comes from an album title by songwriter Charlotte Emma Aitchison (better known as Charli XCX). The PAC received $25,000 from the left-of-center consulting group Movement Labs. Coconut Brat PAC sent out text messages with AI-generated images to swing state voters, which read “me and my friends only date guys that vote.”
• Tow Center for Digital Journalism (TCDJ) is a program within Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism that claims to research and educate on how technological advancements will impact journalism practices. The TCDJ was initially endowed with a $5 million grant from the Tow Foundation, a grantmaking organization that has also advocated for ending “mass incarceration” and “mass criminalization.” The TCDJ has received funding from other left-of-center foundations including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Foundation to Promote Open Society, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
• Catalytic Finance Foundation is a non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Geneva that provides funding and technical assistance for regional green energy projects. Initially called R20 Regions of Climate Action (or R20), it was founded by former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger(R) in cooperation with the United Nations to support environmental projects in several countries including Algeria, Brazil, Nigeria, Tanzania, China, and Romania. Catalytic has previously worked with left-of-center organizations such as the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, chaired by actor Leonardo DiCaprio, as well as networks such as C40 Cities and ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability.
• Coloradans for the Protection of Women and Children is a committee created to oppose the passage of Colorado Amendment 79, the Right to Abortion and Health Insurance Coverage Initiative that was on ballot during the 2024 elections. The amendment ultimately passed, thus adding the right to abortion to the Colorado state constitution and permitting the use of public funds for abortion. Coloradans for the Protection of Women and Children, along with other groups, argued that taxpayers would be forced to pay for abortions and that it would put teenage girls, women, and unborn babies at risk.
• Brooklyn Org is a grantmaking organization that claims to distribute grants through a “racial justice lens.” Formerly known as the Brooklyn Community Foundation, the organization claims that 75% of its grantees are “BIPOC-led,” and grant focus areas include racial justice and indigenous rights, environmental justice, criminal justice, and America’s alleged “history of inequality.” In 2022, Brooklyn Org provided grants to several left-of-center organizations including Grameen America, the Ocean Conservancy, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, UnidosUS, and the National Network of Abortion Funds.