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:

• The Lawrence Foundation is a private grantmaking organization founded by Jeff Lawrence and his late wife Diane Troth. Jeff Lawrence is the CEO of business consulting firm Clivia Systems, was the Chief Technology Officer of Intel’s Network Communications Group, and was listed as a member of the UCLA School of Engineering Dean’s Executive Board as of 2025. In 2024, the Lawrence Foundation made grants to several left-of-center organizations including 350 Colorado, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Defenders of Wildlife, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Southern Environmental Law Center, and the World Wildlife Fund.
• Tribal Energy Alternatives (TEA) is an environmental advocacy organization that helps develop solar-powered energy installations on Native American reservations. It is a project of the solar energy nonprofit GRID Alternatives, which, in 2024, received two grants of $249.8 million and $62.5 million from the Environmental Protection Agency‘s (EPA) Solar for All Initiative for constructing solar energy infrastructure for “low-income and disadvantaged communities.” (LIDACs). TEA has also received funding from the Denali Commission, the Rasmuson Foundation and the Bezos Earth Fund.
• This Is Our Lane (TOL) is an advocacy initiative and project of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence that researches and reports on firearm-related deaths in the United States, as well as gun control measures. Since the start of the Second Trump Administration in 2025, TOL’s X (formerly Twitter) account has posted or reposted articles critical of layoffs and budgetary cuts recommended by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for federal agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and the Department of Health and Human Services. TOL is a member of judicial advocacy group Just Majority (JM), which also includes March for Our Lives,Guns Down America, Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence, Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, and David Hogg.
• The International Labor Communications Association is a professional association of union communications and public affairs workers in both the United States and Canada. It was formed in 1955 and is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, the Canadian Labour Congress, and Change to Win (which is now known as the Strategic Organizing Center). The association holds an annual awards contest for communications and collective bargaining campaigns; the 2024 winners included CWA Local 1180, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the Washington Nurses Association, United Teachers Los Angeles, and the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers.
• Hardworking America is a political advocacy group, registered as a trade name of the North Fund. The North Fund is one of several nonprofits managed by philanthropic consulting firm Arabella Advisors, including the New Venture Fund, Windward Fund, Hopewell Fund, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund. Hardworking America has little online presence aside from a Facebook page and a website, which advocate against raising the state and local taxes (SALT) deduction cap in 2025.