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:

• Spring Street Climate Fund is a left-of-center group that promotes environmentalist policies and campaigns within New York State. In 2023, it made grants to left-of-center organizations that included the New York Communities Organizing Fund Inc., the Alliance for a Green Economy, the New York Public Interest Research Group Fund Inc., the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, and the Environmental Defense Fund. Spring Street Climate Fund has received funding from grantmakers such as the Park Foundation and the Lily Auchincloss Foundation.
• Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow (OBT) is an activist group that claims to provide job training and other education opportunities to address “structural racism.” It is listed as an ally organization of Churches United for Fair Housing, a New York City-based group that advocates for left-of-center housing, economic, and immigration policies. OBT has previously received funding from the Robin Hood Foundation, the Tiger Foundation, and the Pinkerton Foundation.
• Southern Documentary Fund (SDF) is a media advocacy group that supports documentary filmmakers in the southern United States. It has previously received funding from federal agencies including the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. The SDF has also received funding from left-of-center grantmakers such as the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Proteus Fund, and the Sustainable Markets Foundation.
• Syracuse Tenants Union is a left-of-center housing advocacy group that supports legislation it claims will protect tenant rights, such as restrictions on evictions, stricter rental regulations, and an increased role of government authorities in rental agreements. Alongside the Syracuse chapters of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and Democratic Socialists of America, the Syracuse Tenants Union operates the Syracuse Tenants Organizing for Power (STOP!) Coalition, which advocates for ending all evictions, driving out “abusive and negligent landlords,” and universal rent control. In May 2025, the Syracuse Tenants Union organized a rally for its “good cause eviction” campaign, alongside the New York State Tenant Bloc, Service Employees International UnionLocal 1199, and the New York Civil Liberties Union.
• Baum Family Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants for what it describes as educational and socially beneficial purposes in the Kansas City, Missouri area. The foundation was created in 2013 by philanthropist G. Kenneth Baum and his wife Ann Kaufman Baum. G. Kenneth Baum, who passed away in 2021, was also a founding member of the board of trustees for the Kansas Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. In 2023, the Baum Family Foundation made grants to the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, El Centro, and many other groups.