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:

• Girls Incorporated, also known as Girls Inc., is a national organization that advocates for “powerful girls in an equitable society” as well as to “understand and appreciate diversity, embrace inclusiveness, and advance equity.” According to its website, Girls Inc. also promotes increased access to sex education and “reproductive health care.” Listed partners for the group include the Coca-Cola Company, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, the Lilly Endowment, and the Henry Luce Foundation.
• The Council for Responsible Social Media (CRSM) is an advocacy group founded in 2022 that argues increased social media use leads to negative impacts on mental health, increased polarization, and the distribution of conspiracy theories. CRSM is a project of Issue One, which claims that the negative impacts from social media are caused by a lack of “accountability” for “Big Tech,” which it accuses of “obscuring the truth and preventing change.” In 2024, CRSM partnered with the American Psychological Association, Common Sense Media, and the Eating Disorders Coalition to create ActionNotApologies.org, a website campaigning for the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) through an online petition.
• The Fish Welfare Initiative is an animal welfare advocacy group that promotes the protection of farmed fish populations in countries such as India, China, and the Philippines. It has worked with international organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the International Cooperation Committee of Animal Welfare. Its donors have included Open Philanthropy, the Effective Altruism Animal Welfare Fund, the Players Philanthropy Fund, RSF Social Finance, the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, the Network for Good, the American Online Giving Foundation, and Donor Advised Charitable Giving.
• Conservation Voters New Mexico (CVNM) is a state affiliate of the League of Conservation Voters, a national organization that promotes the campaigns of politicians who support left-of-center environmentalist policies. In July 2025, Justin Garoutte of CVNM released a statement criticizing the Second Trump Administration Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to reverse the agency’s previous “endangerment finding” that climate change was a threat to human health. CVNM’s partners include the Semilla Project, Vote Solar, the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, the Environmental Defense Fund, Common Cause New Mexico, and ProgressNow New Mexico.
• Community Alliance of Tenants is an advocacy group that claims to be the state of Oregon’s “only statewide, grassroots, tenant-controlled, tenant-rights organization.” The group is a member of Fair Shot for ALL, an advocacy coalition focused on “Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of color; LGBTQ+ individuals; women; immigrants; and working-class families.” Community Alliance of Tenants has received funding from the Meyer Memorial Trust, the Oregon Community Foundation, the Social Justice Fund Northwest, and the Right to the City Alliance.