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:

• Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center is a state think tank that promotes left-of-center economic policies such as a “millionaires’ tax” on high-earning individuals. The group is a member of the State Priorities Partnership, a network of left-of-center think tanks operated by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center has received funding from the Economic Security Project, the Hopewell Fund, the New Venture Fund, the Amalgamated Charitable Foundation, Donor Advised Charitable Giving (DAFgiving360), and the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund.

• Louisiana Against False Solutions (LAFS) is an activist coalition that supports left-of-center environmental policies within the state. Member organizations include the Center for International Environmental Law, the Sierra Club Delta Chapter, the Foundation for Louisiana, Earthworks, the Climate Reality Project, and the Center for Progressive Reform. According to the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, between 2020 and 2025 some of the largest funders of Louisiana-based LAFS member organizations included the Waverley Street Foundation, the Windward Fund, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Freedom Together Foundation, and the Amalgamated Charitable Foundation.

• Healthy Gulf is a Louisiana-based environmental advocacy group that focuses on efforts to protect communities and ecosystems along the Gulf Coast. Its grantees have included Air Alliance Houston, the Alliance for Affordable Energy, the Greater New Orleans Interfaith Climate Coalition, and the Sierra Club Foundation. In 2024, donors to Healthy Gulf included Earthworks, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Rockefeller Family Fund, and the United States Energy Foundation.

• The Funders Network (TFN) is a membership organization that coordinates and promotes grantmaking in policy areas such as the environment, urban development, and transportation. TFN operates a fellowship program “Professionals Learning About Community, Equity and Sustainability” (PLACES) that promotes leadership focused on “racial equity and social justice,” and which is funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. TFN has also received funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Greater Washington Community Foundation, the United Philanthropy Forum, and the Resources Legacy Fund.

• Full Circle Fund is an organization that recruits working professionals to volunteer with local nonprofits that advocate for “social and environmental justice” within the California Bay Area. Founded in 2000 by now-California State Sen. Josh Becker (D), the group claims to have organized “pro bono consulting projects, issue-focused Circles, and community-led events” on education, housing, “climate justice,” and “economic equity” issues within the state. The Full Circle Fund has received funding from the Laney and Pasha Thornton Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.