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:

• Renewable Energy Alaska Project (REAP) is an advocacy group that promotes state-level weather-dependent energy policies. REAP has previously received funding from the Alaska Conservation Foundation to fund energy initiatives, general operating support, and event planning. REAP has also received funding from the Harder Foundation, the Ocean Conservancy, the Westwind Foundation, the Educational Foundation of America, and the Rasmuson Foundation.
• Free America is an activist movement founded by Women’s March in 2026 to advocate against the Second Trump administration. The movement began with a series of walkout events in the United States and internationally on January 20, 2026. Free America’s demands include “the abolition of ICE,” an end to “MAGA’s purges and power grabs,” and “control over… gender-affirming care.” Its listed partners include local chapters of the 50501 Movement and Indivisible, the American Association of University Professors, the Equal Justice Society, and National Nurses United.
• Cook Inletkeeper is an environmental advocacy group that opposes the development of traditional energy projects within Alaska’s Cook Inlet watershed. The group has taken part in litigation against such projects with left-of-center groups including Earthjustice, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Cook Inletkeeper has received funding from the New Venture Fund, the World Wildlife Fund, the Waterkeeper Alliance, the Harder Foundation, and the True North Foundation.
• Justice and Joy National Collaborative is an activist group that uses community organizing, research, and policy advocacy to “advance social, economic, and political justice with and for girls, young women, and gender-expansive young people of color.” Its listed partner groups include the Aspen Institute, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Lake Research Partners, and the Vera Institute of Justice (VIJ). Its current and past funders have included the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the NoVo Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota.
• Voices for Racial Justice (VRJ) is a community activist group based in Minnesota that claims to be the “longest-running racial justice organizing training organization in the state.” Initially founded in 1993 as the Organizing Apprenticeship Project, the group later changed its name to VRJ in 2014 to focus on “prioritizing initiatives that directly impacted racial justice movements.” VRJ has received funding from the Headwaters Foundation for Justice, the Northwest Area Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Bush Foundation, and the Park Foundation.