Arabella Advisors (commonly called “Arabella”) is a philanthropic consulting company that guides the strategy, advocacy, impact investing, and management for high-dollar left-leaning nonprofits and individuals. [1] Arabella provides these clients with a number of services that ease their operations and that enable them to enact policies focused on environmentalism and other left-of-center issues. [2] The company was founded in 2005 by Eric Kessler, a Clinton administration alumnus and long-time staffer at the League of Conservation Voters who remains a senior managing partner at the firm. [3]
Arabella Advisors manages four nonprofits that serve as incubators and accelerators for a range of other left-of-center nonprofits. These include the New Venture Fund, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the Hopewell Fund, and the Windward Fund. These nonprofits have collectively hosted hundreds of left-wing policy and advocacy organizations, and between 2013 and 2017 reported combined revenues exceeding $1.6 billion. [4] [5] Many of Arabella’s top officials, including firm founder Eric Kessler, are principal officers on the nonprofits’ boards of directors.
Arabella has implemented over 300 different projects. [6] The company specifically highlights projects in which it has helped its clients divest millions of dollars from traditional energy companies, invest in risky experimental companies, boycott the historically Republican-leaning U.S. Chamber of Commerce, enact a ballot initiative that freed 4,000 criminals in California, and lobby for a labor union-friendly policy in Oregon that was supported by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the Oregon Nurses Association. [7]
Arabella and its nonprofit network have been criticized as “dark money” funders both for channeling hundreds of millions of dollars to left-wing organizations and for hosting hundreds of “pop-up groups”–websites designed to look like standalone nonprofits that are really projects of an Arabella-run nonprofit. [8]
Organizational Overview
Arabella Advisors is a strategic consulting and management company that works with individual donors and large left-of-center nonprofits. [9]
Founded in 2005, [10] Arabella has 150 employees. [11] It maintains offices across the country and helps its clients implement their left-wing agendas through sometimes risky programming investments or the creation and incubation of new agenda-driven initiatives or organizations. [12] Arabella claims to have carried out more than 150 domestic and international projects for clients with combined assets worth more than $100 billion. [13]
The company touts that it helps its donor clients develop and implement programs and campaigns that produce left-of-center-social and policy changes. The company brings its wide-range of left-wing nonprofits together to collaborate and exchange ideas on how to implement left-of-center policies. [14]
Arabella manages over $75 million in strategic grants for clients who seek to use their money to implement left-of-center policies. [15] It also guides the “impact investing” of its clients who seek to invest their money in ways that further a left-leaning mission. [16]
In 2017, in response to the election of President Donald Trump, Arabella founder Eric Kessler called for donors to increase their support for organizations that planned to take bold actions on liberal environmentalist, gender-preferential, and government-funded healthcare policies. [17]
Fiscal Sponsorship: The Arabella Advisors Network
Arabella Advisors manages four nonprofits, three of which are 501(c)(3) entities and one of which is a 501(c)(4) organization. All serve as incubators and accelerators for a range of other left-of-center nonprofits. [18] These four nonprofits form a single network that provides funding to other left-of-center nonprofits as well as fiscal sponsorship (or “incubation”) services to other groups. These four nonprofits are:
The New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit created in 2006 which to date claims it has sponsored over 280 projects across a range of left-of-center issues. In 2017, NVF reported $358.9 million in revenues. [19] [20]
The Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) advocacy nonprofit created in 2009 that partners with a range of left-leaning donors to lobby for public policy changes, and which uses targeted and strategic political activities to achieve their social and environmental goals. [21]
The Hopewell Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit created in 2015 which helps left-of-center donors and activists launch new initiatives. [22]
The Windward Fund, Arabella’s “featured” environmental project created in 2015. It supports donors advocating for environmentalism. [23]
The four “Funds” have grown rapidly since their inception, reporting total revenues of $1.64 billion and expenditures of $1.1 billion since 2013. [24] A summary is provided below:
| Arabella Advisors Nonprofit Network: Revenues | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grand Total: | $1,639,270,620 | |||
| Annual Revenues | New Venture Fund | Sixteen Thirty Fund | Hopewell Fund | Windward Fund |
| 2013 | $112,942,320 | $5,269,965 | n/a | n/a |
| 2014 | $179,424,945 | $16,523,735 | n/a | n/a |
| 2015 | $318,405,056 | $5,617,209 | $6,895,271 | $1,297,000 |
| 2016 | $357,581,316 | $21,258,592 | $16,552,056 | $15,812,062 |
| 2017 | $358,858,641 | $79,559,836 | $130,616,293 | $12,656,323 |
| Sum: | $1,327,212,278 | $128,229,337 | $154,063,620 | $29,765,385 |
| Arabella Advisors Nonprofit Network: Expenditures | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grand Total: | $1,163,105,526 | |||
| Annual Expenditures | New Venture Fund | Sixteen Thirty Fund | Hopewell Fund | Windward Fund |
| 2013 | $74,982,490 | $2,721,133 | n/a | n/a |
| 2014 | $134,487,602 | $10,880,643 | n/a | n/a |
| 2015 | $214,351,188 | $8,660,897 | $839,522 | $58,293 |
| 2016 | $264,546,947 | $19,660,860 | $7,818,000 | $7,452,824 |
| 2017 | $329,784,536 | $46,893,083 | $28,943,397 | $11,024,111 |
| Sum: | $1,018,152,763 | $88,816,616 | $37,600,919 | $18,535,228 |
Between 2008 and 2017, Arabella’s four nonprofits paid the company at least a combined $75.7 million in management fees. A summary is provided below (note that the IRS does not require nonprofits to report payments to consultants below $100,000): [25]
| Arabella Network: Contracting Fees | New Venture Fund | Sixteen Thirty Fund | Hopewell Fund | Windward Fund |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grand Total: | $75,729,525 | |||
| 2017 | $17,678,314 | $2,066,194 | $1,507,771 | $980,466 |
| 2016 | $13,167,207 | $789,891 | $807,425 | $740,180 |
| 2015 | $13,167,207 | $239,739 | $170,953 | |
| 2014 | $8,299,366 | $342,066 | ||
| 2013 | $5,509,532 | $201,906 | ||
| 2012 | $4,246,022 | N/A | ||
| 2011 | $,2505,465 | N/A | ||
| 2010 | $1,246,232 | N/A | ||
| 2009 | $1,345,054 | $162,604 | ||
| 2008 | $555,931 | |||
| Total: | $67,720,330 | $3,802,400 | $2,486,149 | $1,720,646 |
New Venture Fund
For more information, see New Venture Fund (Nonprofit)
The New Venture Fund (NVF) (formerly the Arabella Legacy Fund) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit created in October 2006. The group funds a number of center-left causes, but is primarily known for hosting over 280 fiscally sponsored projects. [26] Former Arabella Advisors managing director Lee Bodner serves as president of NVF.
The NVF sponsors the Media Democracy Fund, a group supported by George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, and which pushes for left-of-center internet-related policies, including net neutrality regulations. [27] [28]
Sixteen Thirty Fund
For more information, see Sixteen Thirty Fund (Nonprofit)
The Sixteen Thirty Fund is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit created in 2009. The Fund provides similar fiscal sponsorship services to that of the New Venture Fund and Arabella’s other nonprofits; but the Sixteen Thirty Fund’s projects are often hosted as lobbying arms in conjunction with an “education” or fundraising arm hosted by one of its 501(c)(3) “sister” nonprofits (usually the New Venture Fund). [29]
The Sixteen Thirty Fund has been described as a “progressive advocacy group” because of its lobbying efforts, and the group has created a number of offshoot entities that advocate for liberal policies. [30] One such group, Americans For Tax Fairness Action Fund, advocates for “progressive tax reform.” Another organization, Make It Work Action, pushes for liberal labor policies. [31]
The Sixteen Thirty Fund funneled nearly millions of dollars from Atlantic Philanthropies to “Unity ’09: Moving a Progressive Policy Agenda in America” a liberal effort to support President Barack Obama’s healthcare policy (popularly known as Obamacare). [32] In 2017, the Sixteen Thirty Fund gave over $600,000 to the left-wing Center for Community Change Action, a group organizing opposition to the Trump administration. [33]
Hopewell Fund
For more information, see Hopewell Fund (Nonprofit)
The Hopewell Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit created in 2015. It primarily manages pro-abortion projects, including Equity Forward, which attacks Trump administration “political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for opposing the left-wing abortion agenda.” [34]
Windward Fund
For more information, see Windward Fund (Nonprofit)
The Windward Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit created in 2015. The Windward Fund primarily sponsors environmentalist projects, such as the Climate Resilience Fund.
Issue Areas
Arabella’s main issue areas focus on left-of-center environmentalist, gender, and food policies. [35]
Shareholder Advocacy and Oil Divestment
Arabella has issued reports touting how nonprofits use shareholder advocacy to push for environmentalist prerogatives including carbon reduction mandates and a boycott against the Republican-leaning U.S. Chamber of Commerce. [36] Arabella also pushes for financial divestment from traditional energy companies in favor of experimental environmentalist energy companies and issued a report touting that companies holding $1.3 trillion in assets have pledged “to both divest and invest in clean energy and climate solutions.” [37]
Mandatory Paid Sick Leave
Arabella touts that it worked to create the Everybody Benefits Coalition in 2012, a project of Family Forward Oregon funded by the Rockefeller Family Fund, to lobby for a statewide paid sick leave mandate in Oregon. The coalition included a number of labor-aligned advocacy groups including the Working Families Organization alongside labor unions such as United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the Oregon Nurses Association. [38]
Looser Sentencing Laws
In 2014, Arabella coordinated grant funding from a number of left-leaning nonprofits including the Ford Foundation, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF), the Public Welfare Foundation, and other to form the Vote Safe 501(c)(4), which successfully funded a $10 million ballot initiative campaign to loosen California sentencing laws and release approximately 4,000 convicted criminals. [39]
Other Issues
The company also helps its clients carryout programs across other left-of-center issue areas including economic, education and healthcare-based issues; “equity and social justice” issues; and global redistribution issues. [40]
Leadership
Founder
Eric Kessler is the founder of and a principal and senior managing director at Arabella Advisors. He also serves as board chair of the New Venture Fund and president of the Sixteen Thirty Fund. Kessler previously served as the national field director for the League of Conservation Voters and as a White House appointee managing conservation issues for President Bill Clinton. [41]
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Principals
Sampriti Ganguli is the chief executive officer of Arabella Advisors. [42]
Bruce Boyd is a co-principal and senior managing director at Arabella. Previously Boyd worked for 13 years as executive director of the Illinois chapter of the Nature Conservancy. [43] Boyd is an adviser to the New Venture Fund and a board member for the Hopewell Fund and the Windward Fund.
Staff
Scott Nielsen is Arabella’s managing director of advocacy. [44] He also serves on the board of advisors at the Funders Committee For Civic Participation, a donors’ trade group which Arabella Advisors is a member of. Nielsen has also worked with the MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Democracy Alliance, the State Infrastructure Fund, and the Open Society Foundations. [45]