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:

• More Equitable Democracy is an advocacy group that promotes changes to the United States electoral system to increase representation for racial minority communities. It is a fiscally-sponsored project of the left-of-center organization NEO Philanthropy. More Equitable Democracy has received grants through NEO Philanthropy from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Freedom Together Foundation, and the Seattle Foundation.
• Movement Training Network is an advocacy group that supports activists who promote left-of-center environmental and social movements. According to its website, the group is “committed to providing critical compensation to local and national grassroots leaders, as well as significant program or project funding for communities.” It also argues that “big-pocketed funders pushing nonprofits created in the image of corporate America is not the solution.” Movement Training Network has received funding from grant makers that include the Amalgamated Charitable Foundation, the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, the Partnership Project, the Proteus Fund, and the Resources Legacy Fund.
• Pivot Point is an environmental advocacy group focused on climate change, food security, energy access, and land rights. It was one of hundreds of groups that signed an open letter supporting Greenpeace after the latter was sued by Energy Transfer for its actions in connection to protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Pivot Point has received funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the 128 Collective Foundation (also known as the Preston-Werner Foundation).
• All Rise is a legal advocacy group that promotes treatment-based drug courts to place offenders into rehabilitation programs as an alternative to incarceration. It has received funding from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In FY2025, All Rise supported $89 million in funding for the Drug Court Discretionary Grant program and $32 million for the Veterans Treatment Court program (both housed within the Department of Justice), as well as $74 million for the Drug Treatment Court Program at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
• Talent Beyond Boundaries is an immigration advocacy group that promotes increased migration by refugees as workers for companies in Western countries. It assists migrants with visa applications, sponsorships, and settlement within host countries. According to its website, its partners and supporters include the Population, Refugees, and Migration program at the U.S. Department of State, the United Nations, the United Kingdom’s Home Office, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the European Commission, the Welsh Government, and the Canadian Government. Non-governmental partners and supporters have included LinkedIn, the International Rescue Committee, and MacKenzie Scott.