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:

• The Functional Government Initiative (FGI) is a government watchdog organization that promotes public awareness of government activities and decisions. In 2023, the organization filed a transparency lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice over claims it had withheld records of attorney fees and legal costs related to the representation of Lois Lerner and Holly Paz during the 2013 IRS targeting controversy.
• The Raising Child Care Fund is a grantmaking organization within the Early Childhood Funder’s Collaborative, itself a fiscally sponsored project of Third Sector New England. It helps fund local women and children advocacy groups. The fund claims to focus on “systemic equity” while promoting “antiracist” work. As of January 2024, the group’s website lists 20 partner organizations that have similar priorities, including “systemic racism and economic oppression” as well as “racial, social, and economic justice.”
• The Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine is a pro-Palestinian activist group claiming that Israel uses water distribution as a “weapon” against Palestinians. It is affiliated with the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS). In January 2024, the group endorsed a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based protest, led by anti-Israel group BDS Boston, against Israeli weapons manufacturing company Elbit Systems and its shareholder Chase Bank, for selling weapons to Israel during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
• American Party for Labor (APL) is a communist activist group that was founded as the only “openly anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist” party in the country. In January 2024, the APL endorsed a “March on Washington for Gaza” protest that advocated against the Biden Administration’s support for Israel following the Hamas terror attacks on October 7, 2023. The protests ended at the White House gates, and protesters threw objects at Secret Service personnel while attempting to scale and even dislocate the White House fence.
• The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) is a collective of far-left organizations that claims to oppose “American imperialism.” The UNAC supports both the far-left Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement as well as the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS). It has also called for the United States to halt all military funding for the Israeli government.