The State Policy Network (SPN) is an umbrella group of right-wing think tanks across the country.

The Public Policy Foundation of West Virginia (PPFWV) is SPNs cookie-cutter think tank for the state of West Virginia. While PPFWV claims to be focused on issues important to the people of West Virginia, it actually pushes an agenda dictated by its national right-wing funders and partners.

Journalist Paul J. Nyden in The Charleston Gazette on the Kochs influence in PPFWV and the WV Watchdog

PPFWV has received significant funding from the Koch brothers. Meanwhile, the foundation has published Koch fellows research and pushed an agenda that would benefit the billionaire brothers and other wealthy interests, including rolling back environmental protections and corporate taxes.

PPFWV runs the West Virginia Watchdog, a right-wing online news outlet. The WV Watchdog is the state affiliate of the Franklin Center, an umbrella organization of right-wing "news" outlets in states across the country. Despite the Franklin Center's nonpartisan description, many of the websites funded by the Franklin Center have received criticism for their conservative bias. Furthermore, The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism on a sliding scale of highly ideological, somewhat ideological and non-ideological, ranked the Watchdog.org franchise "highly ideological." PPFWV uses its so-called journalism operation to promote its right-wing agenda through statehouse reporting and agenda-driven investigations. The WV Watchdog was involved in controversy in 2010 when it misreported that then-Governor Joe Manchins office had been subpoenaed as part of a federal grand jury investigation. The report ended up being completely false.

While PPFWV has been funded in part by the Koch brothers, according to published accounts, the precise amount of funding from the Kochs is unknown because PPFWV does not disclose its donors. The identities of the few known PPFWV donors, though, reveal that the organization is largely funded by out-of-state- right-wing special interest groups associated with the Kochs: $221,000 from Donors Capital Fund: Donors Capital Fund, a secretive Koch-funded group based in Virginia, keeps its original funders anonymous, creating another layer of secrecy. As PPFWVs largest known funder, funding from Donors in 2011 alone made up 78% of PPFWVs revenue for that year. In 2008, PPFWV reported receiving $165,467 in revenue, while Donors Capital Fund reported giving PPFWV $181,000 that year over $15,000 more than PPFWV reported. $35,000 from the VA-based State Policy Network $25,000 from the SC-based Roe Foundation

[American Bridge Conservative Transparency, PPFWV IRS 990s, 2008-2011]