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 United Community Fund (UCF) is a pass-through funder affiliated with self-described socialist Neville Roy Singham, who is married to CODEPINK co-founder Jodie Evans. A 2023 New York Times investigation tracked “hundreds of millions of dollars” to Singham-affiliated groups that mixed “progressive advocacy with Chinese government talking points,” including the UCF. The UCF previously donated to the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, founded by Marxist author Vijay Prashad, and to the socialist organization People’s Forum.
• Trust for London is a grantmaking organization located in London, England that primarily donates to local groups addressing poverty. It claims to be one of the largest funders in the city, with its website stating that it donates roughly £10 million (or $12.6 million) annually to other charities. Trust for London also claims to fund “large-scale campaigns and research.” In 2022, it reported that its long-term investments were worth £324 million (or $409 million).
• Post Growth Institute (PGI) is an environmental advocacy organization that supports a no-growth and de-growth economy that distributes wealth based on what people can contribute. PGI is a member of the Progressive International, a socialist organization founded by the European radical-left political movement Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), and the U.S-based Sanders Institute. PGI previously received grants from the NoVo Foundation, a private foundation run by Warren Buffett’s son Peter Buffett, and from the left-of-center organization RSF Social Finance Inc.
• Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project (BLMP) is a left-wing advocacy group that clams to assist LGBTQ migrants while supporting lenient criminal justice policies. The organization was established in 2017 with help from a Soros Justice Fellowship, and is fiscally sponsored by the Transgender Law Center. BLMP has previously received grants from the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, the Trans Justice Funding Project, and MacKenzie Scott.
• Community News Center is a left-of-center 501(c)(4) nonprofit that distributes local newsletters to address what it calls “local news deserts.” Its executive director, Aaron Strauss, is the former director of targeting and data for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and has elsewhere described his work as “using evidence-based strategies to re-elect Biden.” Though Community News Center does not disclose its donors, the Arabella Advisors-managed nonprofit Sixteen Thirty Fund reported donating $100,000 to the group in 2022.