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:

• Future Forward Education Fund is a left-of-center organization that promotes the campaigns of Democratic Party-affiliated political candidates and left-of-center policies through “educational” efforts. It is a fiscally sponsored project of the Our American Future Foundation (OAFF), and is affiliated with electoral advocacy groups Future Forward USA Action and Future Forward PAC. Between 2023 and 2024, the Education Fund’s activities received donations through OAFF from groups that included the Sherwood Foundation, the Give Forward Foundation, the Dallas Foundation, and the Gill Foundation.
• SEIU Local 500 is a local affiliate of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), representing government and non-profit employees in Maryland and Washington, D.C. Local 500 represents employees of left-of-center groups including American Bridge, the Democratic National Committee, Media Matters for America, Oxfam America, People for the American Way, and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Local 500 has endorsed the campaigns of Democratic Party candidates running for governor of Maryland including former People for the American Way and NAACP president Ben Jealous in 2018, and former Obama Administration Labor Secretary Tom Perez in the 2022 Democratic primary.
• Migration Policy Institute (MPI) is an advocacy group that supports a pathway to permanent legal status for illegal immigrants in the United States, as well as increasing legal rights for international migrants and refugees. Its funders have included the Gates Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the World Bank, Arnold Ventures, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the us Education Fund, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and Walmart.
• Volunteer Blue is an online networking tool used to help connect left-of-center activists with Democratic Party-supporting organizations for volunteer roles. It is a project of Together We Elect, a political action committee (PAC) originally created to support the 2020 Democratic presidential ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Volunteer Blue’s listed partners include the national Indivisible Project and certain local affiliates, American Family Voices, Blue Future, Field Team 6, Grassroots Democrats HQ, MoveOn, Movement Labs, They See Blue, and Voters of Tomorrow.
• Alaska Public Interest Research Group (AKPIRG) is a state affiliate of U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US-PIRG) that advocates for left-of-center environmental, campaign finance, and housing policies. Julia Hnilicka, the executive director of AKPIRG, previously worked as the Alaska State Director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development office. In 2024, AKPIRG made grants to Cook Inletkeeper, the Alaska Center, the Native Movement and the Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition.