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 Muslim Skeptic is an online platform that engages in philosophical skepticism regarding Islam, as well as providing pro-Palestinian commentary on current events. It endorsed the 2024 March on Washington for Gaza organized by the American Muslim Task Force on Palestine and the ANSWER Coalition. Members of the American Muslim Task Force on Palestine include American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), and the Muslim American Society (MAS).
• Qaravan, formerly RUSA LGBTQ+, is a New York-based advocacy group that provides social services and community networking for LGBT immigrants and refugees. The group has previously received funding from LGBT and immigrant advocacy groups including World Education Services Inc. and Heritage of Pride Inc. Following the Hamas terror attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023, ACT UP New York provided templates for activists to send emails to Qaravan and other organizations urging them to advocate for an “immediate and permanent ceasefire” in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
• Sustainable Nations is a possibly defunct activist group that advocated for left-of-center environmental policies in the southwestern United States. Founded as the Sustainable Nations Development Project, the group was initially a project of the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples before becoming a sponsored project of the Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ) in 2020. As of 2026, the group was listed on the website of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a resource for building green housing projects.
• People First AI Fund is a project of the OpenAI Foundation, the grantmaking arm of the artificial intelligence (AI) for-profit OpenAI that developed AI chatbot ChatGPT. Among its announced grantmaking focuses are groups involved in “AI literacy & public understanding.” The People First AI Fund has made grants to the Dolores Huerta Foundation, Heartland Forward, PICO California, and the Transgender District Company. Other recipients of grants have included the Native American Journalists Association, the News Literacy Project (NLP), and the Source LGBT+ Center.
• Orange County Community Foundation is a grantmaking organization that, as of 2026, has distributed over $1.25 billion in grants and scholarships since its founding in 1989. Groups it has made grants to include the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties, the Los Angeles LGBT Center, and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Inc. The Orange County Community Foundation has received funding from the Marisla Foundation, Donor Advised Charitable Giving, Inc., the California Community Foundation, and the National Philanthropic Trust.