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 Palestinian Feminist Collective (PFC) is a United States-based advocacy group that claims its pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activism is a feminist issue. Following the Hamas terror attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023, PFC seemingly praised the attacks by posting on its X/Twitter page, “…we affirm the right to resist settler-colonial dispossession, militarization, and occupation.” PFC is a fiscally sponsored project of the WESPAC Foundation, which has provided legal and administrative support for multiple anti-Israel organizations, including those involved with pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the U.S following the October 7 attacks.
• The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco, and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) is a labor union federation whose members represent food and service industry workers in approximately 150 countries. U.S-based labor unions that are part of the IUF include the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), and UNITE HERE!. The IUF operates corporate pressure campaigns against companies with locations that have not yet unionized; as of 2024 the IUF was campaigning against Marriott and Coca-Cola.
• The Alaska Venture Fund is a funding collaborative that supports organizations that advocate for left-of-center environmental and economic policies. It was formed as a project of New Venture Fund, a left-of-center funder managed by Arabella Advisors, and had received a $10 million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund to operate a separate website and hire full-time staff. Other funding partners listed on its website include the Climate Justice Resilience Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the Oak Foundation.
• The Wisconsin Voter Alliance is a right-of-center organization that advocates for election integrity policies and engages in related litigation within the state. The group was founded in 2020 in response to the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), which received a reported $350 million from Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan to fund local election offices in areas that were later shown to have disproportionately voted for Joe Biden during the 2020 election. In February 2024, Wisconsin Voter Alliance announced it would file a Help America Vote Act (HAVA) complaint against the University of Wisconsin-Parkside for employing students in a voter registration work-study program funded by the federal government through the Biden Administration’s Executive Order 14019.
• TrueGivers, LLC is a mailing service company that provides database services, including those that could be used to identify potential voter identification issues, such as changes in address or voting ineligibility. Fundraising agency DonorVoice describes itself as a “sister company” of TrueGivers. DonorVoice operates a blog called “The Agitator,” which is co-edited by longtime left-wing activist Roger M. Carver. Carver has previously been involved with fundraising for Democratic Party-connected groups including the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.