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:

• Power to Decide is an advocacy group that promotes increased access to abortion and contraceptive coverage for women. According to its 2019 annual report, one of the group’s supporters that year was the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Other listed supporters as of 2026 include the JPB Foundation (now the Freedom Together Foundation), Merck, Google, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Plan B One-Step, and PRJKT Ruby.
• The Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City is a public-private partnership that funds civic initiatives and public service programs in the city, such as emergency relief funds, arts projects, jobs programs, and transgender health services. According to its Form 990 covering the period ending in June 2024, the fund spent $455,822 on in-kind and monetary donations to support civic programs such as AmeriCorps. Donors to the Mayor’s Fund have included the Rockefeller Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, and the MacArthur Foundation.
• Georgia Interfaith Power and Light (GIPL) is an environmental activist group and the Georgia state affiliate of the national Interfaith Power and Light GIPL mobilizes faith-based communities in Georgia to advocate for left-of-center environmental policies such as increasing solar energy usage and opposing the development of traditional energy projects such as natural gas pipelines. It has received funding from the Kendeda Fund, the United States Energy Foundation, the Rural Climate Partnership, the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, the Dogwood Alliance, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Winward Fund.
• The Opportunity Network, also known as the New York Opportunity Network (OppNet) is a nonprofit that provides job training and educational services for ethnic-minority communities in New York City. One of its training programs, Uninterrupted, was launched during the COVID-19 pandemic with funding from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, AT&T, the Salesforce Foundation, and the Coach Foundation. The Opportunity Network has also received funding from Meta, the MetLife Foundation, LinkedIn, the Pinkerton Foundation, Goldman Sachs, and the Hirsch Family Foundation.
• The Munathara Initiative is an advocacy group that promotes discussion and debate on policy issues related to the Middle East and North Africa. Its supporters have included the Swiss Development Corporation, the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the National Endowment for Democracy, the European Commission, and the Danish-Arab Partnership Programme.