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:

• Reimagine Gender is a transgender advocacy organization originally created as a spinoff of the now-defunct Gender Spectrum (or Gender Spectrum Charitable Fund), which advised institutions on transgender issues. Gender Spectrum ceased operations in September 2023, leaving Reimagine Gender as its successor. Topics listed as “Insights” on Reimagine Gender’s website include “The Joy of Being Non-binary,” “The Gender Problem with Mother’s and Father’s Day,” and “A Short(ish) Guide to Pronouns and Honorifics.”
• The New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) Fund is one of many Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) overseen by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US-PIRG) which research and lobby for left-of-center policy changes. The US-PIRG was created in the 1970’s by (later) failed presidential candidate Ralph Nader and Donald Ross. Policy topics in which the NYPIRG Fund is involved include the Green New Deal, higher education, and opposition to nuclear energy.
• The Way to Win Action Fund (WWAF) is an affiliate of Way to Win, an activism hub that directs funding from donors to other activist groups and political campaigns. Prominent left-of-center groups that WWAF has donated to include the Tides Advocacy Fund, the New York branch of the Working Families Organization (WFO), and the Black Voters Matter Fund. One notable donor to WWAF is Democracy Fund Voice, a political advocacy group founded by major left-of-center philanthropist and Democrat donor Pierre Omidyar.
• The Michigan Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Network (MUUSJN) is a local affiliate of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) that advocates for left-of-center policies relating to environmental, economic, racial, and LGBT issues. According to its website, affiliates of the MUUSJN include the Economic Justice Alliance of Michigan, Planned Parenthood of Michigan, Showing Up for Racial Justice, and Michigan United.
• Women Lawyers on Guard (WLG) is an association of lawyers that advocates for stronger action against sexual harassment within the legal field. It also files amicus briefs on court cases relating to abortion and contraceptive access. In June 2022, the WLG issued a statement condemning the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning of Roe v. Wade, stating, “With the stroke of a pen, this tragic decision creates a generation of women that have less agency over their own bodies than their grandmothers…”