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:

• Defend the Atlanta Forest is a far-left activist group that seeks to stop the construction of law enforcement training facilities near Atlanta, Georgia, commonly referred to as “Cop City,” claiming they are a “structural commitment to racist harm.” Over 600 left-of-center organizations have endorsed the group’s statements opposing the facilities including Code Pink, the Sunrise Movement, Extinction Rebellion, and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Since the protests began, a number of activists associated with the group have been arrested and charged with state racketeering and other offenses.
• ESCR-Net (International Network for Economic Social and Cultural Rights) is a nonprofit organization based in New York City that is active on issues that include climate change, human rights, and agriculture policy. Since 2013, the group has received grants from left-of-center funders such as the Ford Foundation and the Sigrid Rausing Trust. Following the terror group Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, ESCR-Net published a statement accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing” as well as of “settler-colonialism, apartheid, and illegal occupation.”
• The Sustainable Economies Law Center is a legal advocacy group that supports left-of-center policies on environmental, economic, and social issues. It was one of over 600 organizations that signed a January 2019 open letter to Congress supporting the Green New Deal and advocating for “100 percent decarbonization” of the transportation sector, while denouncing the use of nuclear energy. The Sustainable Economies Law Center has received funding from left-of-center groups that include the K. Kellogg Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, and Patagonia.
• The Ohio Unity Coalition (OUC), also known as the Ohio Coalition on Black Civic Participation, is a state affiliate of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, which seeks to increase voter participation within African-American communities. Formed in 2019, OUC is partnered with Ohio Voice, a voter mobilization group that receives funding from the Foundation to Promote Open Society. The OUC has also partnered with several other left-of-center groups including the NAACP, the Philip Randolph Institute, and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU).
• The State Democracy Project (SDP) operates as a fiscal sponsor for left-of-center organizations that it claims work to “improv[e] democracy.” As of 2024, the SDP serves as fiscal sponsor to groups that include the Green New Deal Network, the Be a Hero Education Fund, and the New Jersey Working Families Alliance. In 2022, the SDP also provided grants to left-of-center organizations including the Tides Foundation, Planned Parenthood of Michigan, and Tides Advocacy.