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:

• Wetlands International is an environmental advocacy organization that focuses on shoreline protection and fresh water supplies. Formed from the merger of several international environmental groups in 1996, the organization receives its main support from the Dutch, German, and other governments, as well as from trusts, foundations, and other nongovernmental organizations. The group’s CEO, Han de Groot, previously served as executive director of Netherlands-based nonprofit UTZ, which certified “sustainable farming” products, and later merged with the Rainforest Alliance.
• Northwest Justice Project (NJP) is a mostly government-funded nonprofit offering free legal services within Washington State. In 2022, NJP partnered with left-of-center Raikes Foundation to host a mobile legal clinic to help homeless children. The group has received grants from the congressionally-funded Legal Services Corporation (LSC), as well as from MacKenzie Scott, the former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, through her nonprofit Yield Giving.
• The New Era Colorado Foundation is an activist group that encourages voter turnout among largely Democratic-leaning constituencies while advocating on issues including abortion and “racial justice” within the state. Their 2022 manifesto, “Youth Agenda” supports an “abolitionist” stance toward “racial justice” through eliminating prisons, policing, and other institutions that it claims support “white supremacy.” The group’s listed partners include All Above All Action Fund (AAAF), ONE Colorado, and Young Invincibles.
• The Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition (CAIR Coalition) is a legal advocacy group that seeks to prevent deportation of illegal immigrants detained in Virginia and Maryland. The group was formed as a program of the Washington Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, but obtained independent nonprofit status in 1999. CAIR Coalition has received funding from left-of-center sources including the Immigrant Justice Corps and the Vera Institute of Justice.
• Lone Star Legal Aid (LSLA) is a nonprofit that provides legal services for those below 125 percent of the poverty line in Texas and Arkansas. LSLA has received funding from organizations including the Bob Woodruff Foundation, Equal Justice Works, the Legal Services Corporation, and Wells Fargo. It has previously worked on environmental issues with left-of-center activist groups including the National Environmental Policy and Law Center (NELC), Environment Texas, and the Sierra Club.