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:

• Power Forward Communities is an environmental coalition of nonprofits, private companies, municipalities, labor unions, and financial institutions that supports replacing appliances with more energy efficient ones to reduce carbon emissions. It was founded in 2023 by Enterprise Community Partners, Rewiring America, Habitat for Humanity International, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and United Way Worldwide. In 2024, the group was awarded a $2 billion National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF) grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to subsidize residential energy efficiency projects.
• Act 4 SA is a nonprofit organization that advocates in favor of lenient criminal justice policies in San Antonio, Texas while characterizing society as “trauma-inducing” and “rooted in racism and oppression.” As of July 2024, its main project category “People Over Policing” contains initiatives and petitions that include “jail-based voting,” “keep armed cops out of the central library,” and “stand with Palestine.” Act 4 SA raises money through left-of-center donation processing platform ActBlue. Its executive director Ananda Tomas previously worked as a regional field director for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I) 2016 presidential campaign.
• ProgressNow New Mexico Education Fund is a state communications and advocacy group whose lobbying arm, ProgressNow New Mexico, is an affiliate of the national advocacy group ProgressNow. ProgressNow New Mexico Education Fund has received funding from left-of-center organizations including the New Venture Fund, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, and the Foundation to Promote Open Society. In 2024, it signed a letter urging New Mexico’s United States Senators to co-sponsor legislation proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) to investigate the state of Israel over potential humanitarian law violations during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
• The Alianza Center is a left-of-center advocacy group based in Orlando, Florida that engages in voter mobilization efforts in the local Hispanic community. It is the 501(c)(3) arm of Alianza for Progress, a group that supports Democratic Party campaigns in the state. In May 2023, the Alianza Center was one of several groups that filed a lawsuit over Florida Senate Bill 7050, requiring third-party voter registration groups to renew registration each election, claiming it violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
• Wellville is a health advocacy group that monitors community statistics such as poverty rates, education levels, health rankings, and teenage births. It is a 10-year project operating in Clatsop County, Oregon; Lake County, California; Muskegon, Michigan; North Hartford, Connecticut; and Spartanburg, South Carolina, which are collectively referred to as the “Wellville 5.” It is a project of the New Venture Fund, a left-of-center grantmaking organization and one of several nonprofits managed by philanthropic consulting firm Arabella Advisors.