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 Voting Access for All Coalition (VAAC) is an activist group that supports increased voting access for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals in Michigan. As of 2025, members of VAAC include the American Friends Service Committee’s Michigan Criminal Justice Program, the Michigan Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Network, and the Washtenaw County Clerk’s Office. VAAC has previously collaborated with left-of-center organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and the League of Women Voters of Ann Arbor.
• The NDN Action Network is a Native American activist group that promotes left-of-center policies in South Dakota. It is affiliated with the NDN Collective, a group that has advocated for the closure of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, calling it an “international symbol of white supremacy and racial injustice” built on “stolen land.” The NDN Collective also opposes the use of emissions-free nuclear energy. The NDN Action Network has received funding from left-of-center groups including Tides Advocacy, One for Democracy Action Fund, and the Seattle Foundation.
• Stand in the Gap is a right-of-center organization that offers legal services and other support for defendants who were arrested for their involvement in the January 6, 2021 riot at the United States Capitol in Washington D.C. Services offered by the group include mental health support and financial assistance, as well as fundraising for legal defense in civil lawsuits. On its website the group stated its support for President Donald Trump’s January 20, 2025 pardons for over 1,500 individuals connected to the riot.
• The Missouri Workers Center (MWC) is a labor union-affiliated advocacy group that promotes left-of-center public policies in the state. In 2025, it led a coalition of organizations that opposed the construction of a new data center in St. Louis, which included the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Action St. Louis, Missouri Jobs with Justice, the Sierra Club Louis, and WePower. MWC has received funding from left-of-center groups including the Missouri Organizing and Voter Engagement Collaborative (MOVE), the United for Respect Education Fund (UREF), PowerSwitch Action, the Clean Slate Initiative, the New Venture Fund, and ImpactAssets Inc.
• Ta’ayush (Arabic for “coexistence”), is a pro-Palestinian advocacy organization which documents alleged interactions between Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank region. It is a fiscally sponsored project of the Alliance for Global Justice(AFGJ), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has served as a fiscal sponsor to numerous left-wing projects such as Refuse Fascism, United Students Against Sweatshops, the Venceremos Brigade, and Samidoun. AfGJ has received funding from left-of-center organizations including George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and the Tides Foundation.