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:

• Alliance for Positive Change is a New York City-based group that provides health care access, housing, peer training, and other services to those living with AIDS/HIV and other chronic conditions. In 2010, it partnered with the Keith Haring Foundation to open the Keith Haring ASC Harlem Center. Between 2012 and 2017, the group’s annual operating budget increased from $10 million to $22 million. Organizations that have funded the Alliance for Positive Change include the New York Community Trust, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, and the Robin Hood Foundation.
• Affinity Legacy is a nonprofit Grantmaker located in New York City that supports organizations focused on issues such as mental health, workforce education, and assisting previously incarcerated individuals. Initially founded in 1986 as Bronx Health Place, it eventually changed its name to Affinity Legacy following its acquisition by Molina Healthcare. Affinity Legacy’s grant recipients have included the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center Inc., Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, Inc., and Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison Inc.
• NY/NJ Baykeeper is a left-of-center environmentalist group that uses litigation and advocacy to influence water-quality and land-use policy within the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary. It has previously worked with other left-of-center environmentalist groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, the Sierra Club, and Hudson Riverkeeper (Riverkeeper). It has received funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Inc., Network for Good, Inc., and the Hyde and Watson Foundation.
• Creation Justice Ministries (CJM) is a religious advocacy group that promotes left-of-center environmentalist policy. Initially founded in 1983 as an “Eco-Justice Working Group” of the National Council of Churches, the group would later become an independent nonprofit organization with members including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church, and the Progressive National Baptist Convention. CJM has received funding from the US Climate Action Network, the Partnership Project, Georgia Interfaith Power & Light, and the Bluegreen Alliance.
• New York University (NYU) is a private research university with campuses in New York City, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai. It houses the William J. Brennan Center for Justice and the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center. NYU’s research funding has included grants from federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Department of Energy. NYU has also received funding from Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, the Bloomberg Family Foundation Inc., the Leon Levy Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Wyss Foundation.