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:

• Voice for Humanity Project is an anti-Israel protest group created after the October 7, 2023 Hamas terror attacks. Following Hamas’ attack, Voice for Humanity Project often coordinated with the Palestinian American Community Center to conduct anti-Israel protests that have included driving a billboard truck through major U.S cities displaying messages such as “Zionism = Fascism,” and “Israel is the New Nazi Germany.” The watchdog group Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has stated Voice for Humanity Project’s advertisement campaigns spread false antisemitic conspiracy theories, including claims that Israel “shelters pedophiles” and “buys politicians.”
• Truist Foundation is the grantmaking arm of Truist Financial Corporation, which was created through the merger of SunTrust Bank and BB&T Bank in 2019. In 2020, the foundation donated over $25 million towards COVID-relief efforts, and in 2019 and 2020 it donated another $20 million to local organizations that claimed to provide aid to “marginalized neighborhoods.” Following Hurricane Helene in 2024, the foundation donated $1 million to aid organizations including the United Way Worldwide, the American Red Cross, and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy’s Atlantic Hurricane Season Recovery Fund.
• Public Democracy, Inc. is a public benefit corporation that claims to develop data and artificial intelligence (AI) systems to address areas such as “economic equity” and “social inequality and economic injustice.” In 2020 it tried to develop a “better understanding around vaccine attitudes” while working with several left-of-center group including the National Urban League, National Minority Quality Forum, and Fair Count. Between 2022 and 2023, the group received $500,000 in grants from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF).
• Middle East Democracy Center (MEDC), founded in 2024 through the merger of the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) and Freedom Initiative, is a foreign policy advocacy group that researches the development of democratic frameworks within the Middle East and North Africa. In September 2024, MEDC advocated for the Biden Administration to restore funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNWRA), a UN agency that was accused of collaborating with the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza. MEDC, while it was still known as POMED, received over $3.2 million in grants between 2016 and 2023 from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF).
• Association for Promotion of Jewish Secularism (APJS) is the nonprofit publisher of Jewish Currents magazine. Started in 1946, the magazine has published articles supporting the Palestinian right-of-return ideology, criticizing Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defense system, and advocating for boycotting businesses operating in the West Bank. The APJS has received funding from left-of-center groups including the Open Society Foundations (OSF), the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, and the Puffin Foundation.