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:
- The Courage Project is a grantmaking initiative formed in May 2025 which provides funding for left-of-center causes. It is fiscally sponsored by the Amalgamated Charitable Foundation and, according to Inside Philanthropy, was created by left-of-center foundations interested in “elevating examples that offer a counter to the Trump agenda.” The Courage Project was founded through $5 million in donations from other organizations including the Freedom Together Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Marguerite Casey Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Public Welfare Foundation, and United Way Worldwide.
- Tax the Greedy Billionaires (TGB) is a left-of-center advocacy group that calls for increasing taxes on Americans with over $50 million in assets, believing that “billionaires shouldn’t exist.” TGB was one of many left-of-center groups which took part in the anti-Trump “No Kings” protests on June 14, 2025, coinciding with the U.S. Army’s 250th Anniversary Parade in Washington, D.C., as well as President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday. Other organizations that took part in the protests included the ACLU, Common Cause, Community Change Action, the Human Rights Campaign, the Indivisible Project, People for the American Way, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Ultraviolet Action, and Voices of Reason.
- Partnership to End Homelessness is a collaborative initiative between the Washington, D.C. municipal government’s Interagency Council on Homelessness and the Greater Washington Community Foundation, aimed at reducing homelessness within the District through grant programs and advocacy. Grant recipients include DC Jobs with Justice, the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, the Fair Budget Coalition, and ONE DC (Organizing Neighborhood Equity). Foundations which have supported the Partnership to End Homelessness include the Bainum Family Foundation, the Naomi and Nehemiah Cohen Foundation, and the Stewart R. Mott Foundation.
- Law Forward is a legal advocacy and litigation group which promotes left-of-center policies in Wisconsin. Jeff Mandell is a co-founder as well as president and general counsel of the organization. He previously served as president of the Madison Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society and was a law clerk to Judge A. Raymond Randolphof the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Between 2021 and 2023, Law Forward received funding from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the Telescope Fund, the New Venture Fund, and the Hopewell Fund.
- First Alaskans Institute (FAI) is an advocacy organization that promotes left-of-center perspectives on issues such as race/ethnicity, environmentalism, and education. One of its projects, Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation, was initially funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and intended to address “the institutional and systemic nature of racism.” Donors to the FAI include the National Urban Indian Family Coalition, the Ocean Conservancy, the NDN Collective, the First Nations Development Institute, the Windward Fund, the Inatai Foundation, the Tides Foundation, the Rasmuson Foundation, and the New Venture Fund.
