Organization Trends
InfluenceWatch Friday
June 28, 2024

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 Palestine Digital Activist Forum (PDAF) is an annual event focused on digital rights and online activism among Palestinians. PDAF is a project of 7amleh, a Haifa-based organization that helped found the Palestinian Digital Rights Coalition. PDAF partners include TikTok, Jewish Voice for Peace, Amnesty International and American Muslims for Palestine. In May 2024, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) withdrew a video message that was to have been presented at PDAF when it was revealed that a fellow speaker, 7amleh board member Nevin Abu Rahmoun, made a Facebook post praising the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel.
- The High Tide Foundation is a Grantmaker that supports environmental policies including reducing methane gas emissions and using carbon offset credits. The group has provided grants to left-of-center groups including the Arabella Advisors-managed Windward Fund, the Alliance for Climate Education, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Center for American Progress (CAP), and Greenpeace. In 2021, it was one of several groups to pledge over $328 million towards reducing global methane emissions. Others included the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Oak Foundation.
- It Takes Roots (ITR) is an environmentalist coalition claiming to represent over 200 organizations, which was created after the 2016 United States presidential election to oppose “the racist, misogynist and xenophobic politics and practices of Trumpism.” The network originated from the work of left-of-center organizations including the Climate Justice Alliance, the Indigenous Environmental Network, the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, and the Right to the City Alliance. Following the October 7, 2023 Hamas terror attacks on Israel, ITR released a statement calling for a ceasefire and professing the group’s “unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle for self-determination.”
- The California Faculty Association (CFA) is a labor union representing faculty professionals employed by the California State University system. It is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Key issues listed by the CFA include “Anti-Racism and Social Justice,” making state universities tuition-free, and ending conventional fuel usage. In April 2024, the CFA passed a resolution supporting Palestinians and denouncing Israel in the ongoing Gaza conflict, while claiming that Israel “does not enjoy the right to self-defense.”
- Palestine Legal is a litigation and advocacy group that provides legal support and rights training for students and activists who take part in pro-Palestinian events. It is a fiscally-sponsored project of the Tides Center, a left-of-center nonprofit established to manage the fiscal sponsorship services of its “sister” organization, the Tides Foundation. Palestine Legal has previously worked with advocacy groups that support the anti-Israel boycott, divest, and sanction (BDS) movement, including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the National Lawyers Guild.