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:

• Bruce A. Karsh is an American philanthropist and the co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management, a global asset management firm that specializes in “alternative investments.” In 2018, Bruce and his wife Martha donated $43.9 million to the University of Virginia School of Law, the largest gift in the school’s history to that point. In 2021, they pledged another $50 million towards establishing the Karsh Institute of Democracy on the school campus. Their Karsh Family Foundation has donated to organizations that include the Brady Center To Prevent Gun Violence, Common Sense Media, Human Rights First, and the New Venture Fund.
• Center for Leadership and Educational Equity (CLEE) is a Rhode Island-based advocacy group that provides training to educators and administrators in promoting equity within the New England public education system. In 2022, CLEE received a $2.7 million grant from the U.S Department of Education’s Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) program for the purpose of addressing “the root causes of educational inequities,” and another 5-year $9.97 million grant from the Department’s Education Innovation and Research (EIR) program prior to the end of the Biden Administration. CLEE has also received funding from other organizations including the Nellie Mae Education Foundation and the Rhode Island Foundation.
• Latinx Therapists Action Network (LTAN) is an advocacy group that claims to provide mental health support services for migrant communities, as well as immigration attorneys and activists. By 2022, LTAN claimed to have expanded to 103 mental health practitioners across 28 U.S states. LTAN has received grants directed through NEO Philanthropy, including from the General Service Foundation in 2023 and the Heising-Simons Foundation in 2024.
• National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) is an advocacy network that provides data and other resources to local communities while promoting “racial and economic equity in policy and practice around the country.” NNIP is a project of the Urban Institute, which coordinates with over 30 national organizations such as the Kinder Institute for Urban Research. The NNIP has received funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and was previously supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. It has also received grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
• National Council of Nonprofits (NCN) is a network of organizations that promote left-of-center policies at the federal, state, and local levels of government. The NCN supports Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and offers programs on its website to assist other nonprofits in achieving DEI objectives, including a tool that allegedly measures “implicit/unconscious biases.” The NCN lists several organizations as its “core mission partners,” including the Barr Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.