When the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) publishes a new attack on pro-growth economic policies that create jobs and prosperity, allied groups pick it up within days. PESP doesn’t operate on its own; rather, it sits within a network of likeminded liberal organizations and lawmakers that echo each other’s arguments, cite each other’s reports, and target the same firms. Understanding this ecosystem is key to grasping how the opponents of free enterprise exert their influence in Washington today:
The Funding: Pinpoint has previously documented PESP’s donor network: liberal foundations, labor unions, and George Soros-linked money funding the group that calls itself “a nonprofit watchdog organization focused on the growing private equity and broader private funds industry.” The Washington Examiner reported that PESP takes money from labor unions and then produces research serving those same unions’ interests.
The Elected Allies: PESP’s ties reach directly into influential Democratic Senate offices. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has co-hosted a panel with PESP, and her office has cited PESP research in press releases announcing new legislation. When Warren and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced a bill targeting private equity in healthcare, PESP’s policy director was quoted directly in Warren’s press release. PESP’s research on public pension exposure to private equity has also formed the basis of Congressional letters demanding information from companies.
The Advocacy Allies: One of PESP’s closest advocacy partners is Americans for Financial Reform (AFR). In February 2025, PESP, AFR, and Americans for Tax Fairness co-authored a report titled “Private Equity, Public Damage,” timed to support legislation introduced by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). PESP and AFR were aligned in submitting opposition comment letters to the Department of Labor’s proposed rule this year permitting alternative assets in 401(k) plans. AFR, which Pinpoint exposed last September as a partisan operation posing as a consumer watchdog, is run by former union organizers and funded in part by George Soros’s Open Society Action Fund, the same donor base that backs PESP.
Case Study: The Delta Fund: PESP’s narrative also gets picked up by donors who aren’t formally tied to the group but push the same conclusions on their own. The Delta Fund, a donor-advised fund run by former Facebook executive Brian Boland and his wife Katie, is one example. The Bolands, based in the Seattle area, have donated at least $73,550 to Democratic candidates and committees since 2017. Brian Boland, a former Facebook vice president, called PESP “a fantastic group” on LinkedIn in December 2025. Katie Boland, who is active in the Democratic donor network Way to Win, has promoted PESP’s reports and regularly engages with PESP’s social media posts. Together, the Bolands have published two of their own pieces on private equity, in July 2025 and November 2025, both tracking PESP’s framing of firms and initiatives almost point-for-point.
Brian Boland’s political activity doesn’t stop at private equity. He served as the treasurer of Faith & Prejudice, a 501(c)3 non-profit that has advocated reparations and called for redistributing funds from historically white congregations to minority-led churches. He is also a member of Patriotic Millionaires, the advocacy group pushing for higher taxes on the wealthy. In 2021, Boland was among more than a dozen Patriotic Millionaires who publicly responded to a ProPublica report on how the wealthy avoid income taxes. He backed a Washington state wealth tax the following year. Boland’s own homes and a vehicle are held in a family trust, a structure Patriotic Millionaires’ own senior adviser has criticized as a tool for shielding generational wealth, the same kind of arrangement his own group campaigns against.
This echo chamber of liberal organizations and individuals are a model, one where a handful of well-funded voices manufacture the appearance of a movement large enough to shape legislation, drive press coverage, and influence public opinion. What is sold as grassroots consensus is really just a small circle amplifying itself.
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