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:

• FRIDA (The Young Feminist Fund) is a Canadian feminist organization that is active in policy areas that include climate change and LGBT rights. Following the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, against Israel, FRIDA announced that it stood against Israeli “colonialism” and “white supremacy” and accused Israel of committing genocide against the people of Gaza. Its donors include the Climate Justice Resilience Fund (CJRF), the NoVo Foundation, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, and the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund.
• Young People’s Alliance is a student advocacy organization that registers voters on college campuses and lobbies elected officials within the state of North Carolina. In 2022 and 2023, the group supported several pieces of state legislation that would censor online content alleged to promote “extremism” or otherwise harmful material. Several of its listed partner organizations include the left-of-center groups Common Cause North Carolina and the Omidyar Network.
• Mortgage Bankers Association of America (MBA) is a nonprofit organization representing groups within the real estate financing industry. The MBA supports government policies that increase access to mortgages for low-income Americans, as well as the continuation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). In 2023 an appellate court ruled that the CFPB’s funding structure was unconstitutional, a ruling that has been appealed to the Supreme Court.
• Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung is a far-left German think tank associated with the German socialist party Die Linke (The Left). The group advocates for “democratic socialism with an unwavering internationalist focus” as well as the critical race theory-influenced concept of “anti-racism.” In 2023, U.S Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spoke with members of the foundation regarding socialism and other left-of-center politics. The group has also called for Israel to cease what it claims to be an illegal “occupation policy” in the West Bank.
• Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance is an environmentalist organization opposed to commercialization or energy production in wilderness regions of southern Utah. In a 2023 newsletter celebrating the group’s 40th anniversary, the group labeled Reagan administration Interior Secretary James Watt the “embodiment of anti-environmental extremism.” The group has filed multiple suits against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over their oil leasing policies, even calling Black Lives Matter, “the other BLM, the principled one,” as a slight against the agency.