Hopewell Fund

As of August 2026, the Hopewell Fund had awarded $600 million in grants to over 130 projects in all 50 U.S. states since its founding in 2015. Since the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the organization has directed increased funding to funds supporting abortion access advocacy efforts and the provision of abortions. ³

Fiscally Sponsored Projects

The Hopewell Fund, like all four nonprofits previously managed by the for-profit consultancy Arabella Advisors, primarily exists to sponsor groups that operate websites designed to look like standalone nonprofits. These website entities rarely become fully-fledged nonprofits; instead, they typically exist to facilitate an issue advocacy campaign pushing left-of-center policies and may disappear after the campaign is finished. The Hopewell Fund was one of the ”younger” Arabella nonprofits, founded in 2015, and most of the “fake” groups it has sponsored have been focused on expanding abortion access and criticizing President Donald Trump’s health care policies.  ⁴

The Hopewell Fund describes its mission as “facilitat[ing] rapid and efficient launchers of well-resourced projects with diverse revenue and funding models, including charitable contributions and investments.” When it was previously managed by Arabella Advisors, Arabella provided it with staffers, “operational support in managing the organization,” and “supplemental consulting support for some Hopewell Fund projects” in exchange for fees paid to the company by the Hopewell Fund.  ⁵

Equity Forward

Equity Forward is a project of the Hopewell Fund that criticized Trump administration-backed health-care legislation. Equity Forward ran a campaign named “HHS Watch” that publishes opposition research on Trump administration nominees that are associated with socially conservative groups, especially those that are attacked by the controversial Southern Poverty Law Center.  ⁶

NFL Players Coalition

In December 2017, the Hopewell Fund became the fiscal sponsor of the NFL Players Coalition, the charitable vehicle created by the National Football League in November 2018 to help “contribute $89 million over seven years to social justice causes.”  ⁷ The Players Coalition was reportedly promised 50 percent of the total $89 million sum. ⁸

Economic Security Project

Hopewell Fund manages the Economic Security Project, which promotes a universal basic income (UBI) of government cash payments to individuals. ^{9  10} To this end, the Economic Security Project funded the Roosevelt Institute, the nominally right-leaning Niskanen Center, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Center for Popular Democracy, and the Stanford Basic Income Lab.  ⁹ Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza was a founding signatory for the Economic Security Project, ¹¹ and Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes was formerly co-chair of the Project and as of 2026 was the sole board chair. ¹²

Other Hopewell Projects

Other known current or former Hopewell Fund projects have included Arizonans For Responsible Government, Economic Security Project Action, Get America Covered, Impact Project, Learning Together Project Fund, Over Zero Resources for Abortion Delivery, and the Newsroom Network.

On May 29, 2025, right-of-center watchdog group Americans for Public Trust (APT) released a report that listed trade names allegedly used by the Sixteen Thirty Fund and other affiliated nonprofits managed by consulting firm Arabella Advisors. Trade names listed for Hopewell included the Better Internet Initiative, Civic (Re)Solve Education Fund, Families Over Billionaires Education Fund, Heat Initiative, Center for U.S. Voters Abroad, and Equity Forward.  ¹³

As of February 2025, States at the Core (STAC), a project of the Hopewell Fund, was listed as one of several groups providing training for activists in Minnesota to protest activities of the second Trump administration’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities in the Twin Cities region. According to a report by City Journal, STAC had developed ICE-watch frameworks in “20 states since early 2025.”  ¹⁴

Funds

As of 2026, the Hopewell Fund divided its grantmaking across numerous funds, including the Rare Impact Fund, the States at the Core, Abortion in America, Resources for Abortion Delivery, and Better Taxes for a Better America. ¹⁵

Rare Impact Fund

The Rare Impact Fund is a fiscally sponsored project of the Hopewell Fund dedicated to supporting youth mental health initiatives. Actress and singer Selena Gomez created the fund in conjunction with her cosmetics company, Rare Beauty, with the goal of raising $100 million for youth mental health services and with a special emphasis on providing services to racial minorities and LGBT individuals. As of August 2026, the fund had reportedly raised $30 million and supported 30 groups. ¹⁶

States at the Core

States at the Core is a left-of-center organizing and strategy project fiscally sponsored by the Hopewell Fund. The group helps identify alleged threats to American democracy and authoritarian elements in the United States, including white nationalist groups and school board takeovers. It claims to provide “customized support to front-line groups, helping them build strategic, tailored, and bold plans” to oppose such groups. States at the Core co-founder and co-director Jill Garvey is the former Western States Center chief of staff. ^{17 15 18}

Abortion in America

Abortion in America: Stories Igniting a Movement is a fiscally sponsored project of the Hopewell Fund that collects and publicizes stories of Americans it alleges were harmed by state-level abortion restrictions. The group also commissions surveys and research on public attitudes toward abortion laws. As of August 2026, the group displayed 229 stories from all 50 U.S. states. ¹⁹

Resources for Abortion Delivery

Resources for Abortion Delivery was one of the first fiscally sponsored projects of the Hopewell Fund, founded in 2016. The group supports abortion access advocacy and abortion providers in the United States, including with consulting services, technical assistance, and legal aid. As of August 2026, the group had distributed over $92 million to 166 organizations, including 98 abortion providers in 28 states. ²⁰

Better Taxes for a Better America

Better Taxes for a Better America is a fiscally sponsored project of the Hopewell Fund that operates as a left-of-center donor collaborative which supports advocacy for changes to federal and state tax policy. The organization describes itself as a “funder table” that coordinates donors, pools and directs funding, and recommends nonprofit groups for contributions. The group argues that the U.S. tax code disproportionately benefits wealthy individuals and large businesses and advocates for a billionaire minimum income tax and a permanent child tax credit. The group also supports increased public spending on education, health care, child care, infrastructure, and environmentalist programs. ²¹

As of August 2026, Better Taxes for a Better America was led by executive director Sarah Pray, the former managing director of policy at Americans for Financial Reform and an employee of the Open Society Foundations’ Economic Justice Program. ²¹

Sunflower Services Acquisition

On November 17, 2025, a newly formed public-benefit corporation called Sunflower Services acquired Arabella Advisors’ fiscal-sponsorship servicing and administrative business. Though Sunflower did not take over Arabella’s entire fiscal-sponsorship operations, Sunflower acquired its accounting, compliance, human resources, grant administration, and other operational capabilities. With the acquisition, Arabella ceased operations, but 240 Arabella employees transferred to Sunflower. ^{22 23}

The acquisition was primarily led by the New Venture Fund (NVF), though the Windward Fund and the Hopewell Fund contributed as well, making the three nonprofits the owners of Sunflower. Since then, the NVF has contracted Sunflower for back-office services. ^{22 23}

According to Inside Philanthropy, the corporate reshuffling was instigated in response to Republican-led investigations into potential legal violations by Arabella Advisors and its associated nonprofits, including the Hopewell Fund. ²³

Controversies and Criticism

Ideological News Production

The nonprofit watchdog OpenSecrets (published by the Center for Responsive Politics) reported in May 2020 on Arabella Advisors’ and the Hopewell Fund’s involvement in media brands it characterized as “fake news sites,” facilitating donors pouring untraceable dollars into digital content “masquerading as news coverage to influence the 2020 election.”  ²⁴

OpenSecrets identified five Facebook pages (Colorado Chronicle, Daily CO, Nevada News Now, Silver State Sentinel, and Verified Virginia) that “gave the impression of multiple free-standing local news outlets,” but are in fact “merely fictitious names used by the Sixteen Thirty Fund,” Arabella’s 501(c)(4) lobbying nonprofit.  ¹ These pages published Facebook political advertisements that favored Democrats and left-of-center causes during the 2020 election. After the report was published a number of these pages were deleted. ²⁴

States Newsroom, which runs another network of left-of-center ideological advocacy websites, was originally created as “Newsroom Network,” a project of the Hopewell Fund. In June 2019, States Newsroom was spun off as an independent nonprofit with its own 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, but a number of its local affiliates remained as legal aliases of Hopewell Fund.  ²⁵

While States Newsroom does not disclose its donors (and is not required to by the IRS), OpenSecrets reported:

IRS application records obtained by OpenSecrets show the States Newsroom was offered a $1 million donation from the Wyss Foundation, a private foundation primarily funded by Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss, who made his fortune as CEO of a controversial medical device manufacturer called Synthes. A financial statement in the IRS records obtained by OpenSecrets shows that the States Newsroom plans to bring in more than $27 million in contributions before the end of 2021. ²⁴

In 2018, the Hopewell Fund gave $1.72 million to News for Democracy, which OpenSecrets pointed out “was at the crux of a network of seemingly independent Facebook pages disguised as news outlets that started spending on digital ads in 2018,” with backing from the Sixteen Thirty Fund and Investing in US, an investment vehicle funded by LinkedIn founder and liberal billionaire Reid Hoffman. ²⁴

Post-2024 Criticisms

In November 2025, the State of Nebraska sued several nonprofit organizations over allegations they illegally spent over $10 million in foreign contributions while supporting state ballot initiatives between 2022 and 2024. The nonprofit groups in question included the Wyss Foundation, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the Berger Action Fund, the New Venture Fund, the Hopewell Fund, and the Fairness Project. According to Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers (R), the organizations in question violated a 2022 state law barring foreign nationals from funding state ballot campaigns and initiatives. Hilgers also alleged that Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss had previously sent donations to be passed through the nonprofits for the purpose of funding several local ballot initiatives.  ²⁶

Leadership

Senior Staff

As of 2026, Anna Brower was the president of the Hopewell Fund, and had held the role since September 2025. She has been described as the “inaugural president” of the organization. ^{27  28} Prior to Hopewell, she served as the Chief of Staff for New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), as well as Deputy Chief of Staff for Attorney General James beforehand. Prior to joining Attorney General James’s office, Brower worked as the deputy campaign manager for James’s 2018 campaign and later volunteered for then-former Vice President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.  ²⁹

As of August 2026, Jonathan Bruck was the chief of staff of the Hopewell Fund, a position he has held since March 2026. From May 2020 to November 2025, Bruck worked at Arabella Advisors in numerous roles, ending as a senior director of advocacy and strategic operations. Earlier, Bruck held roles at the Pew Charitable Trusts and Perkins Coie. ³⁰

As of August 2026, Taylor O’Brien was the program director of the Hopewell Fund. O’Brien previously spent six years at Sunflower Services, the company that acquired most of Arabella Advisors’ operational capacity. ³

Andrew Schulz was the Hopewell general counsel as of 2024. ³¹ Schulz has also worked as general counsel for Arabella Advisors and as in-house counsel for the Council on Foundations. ³²

Board of Directors

Lee Bodner is the former managing director for the for-profit philanthropy consulting firm Arabella Advisors, which previously managed the Hopewell Fund, the New Venture Fund, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, and the Windward Fund. He is a former board member for the Windward Fund, and the former president of the New Venture Fund.  ³³ As of 2025, Bodner was listed as chair of the board of directors for Hopewell. ²⁷

Cherly Contee is secretary and treasurer of Hopewell. She is the CEO of Impact Seat Foundation.  ³⁴

Director Marissa Padilla is executive vice president of Global Strategy Group (GSG).  ³⁵

Former Board Members and Officers

Wilbur Priester, the former CFO for Arabella Advisors, was previously chief financial officer of Hopewell Fund. ³⁶

Sampriti Ganguli, a board treasurer through December 2019, was previously CEO of Arabella Advisors.  ³⁷

Former board secretary and treasurer Michael Slaby previously worked as a Democratic Party operative, and was the chief technology officer and deputy digital director for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign  as well as the chief integration and innovation officer for his 2012 presidential campaign. ³⁸

Former Staff

The following individuals were listed as key or highest-paid employees in Hopewell Fund’s 2021 Form 990 filing. ³⁹ Courtney Cuff was at that time the executive director of the State Impact Project, a Hopewell Fund project that advocates for left-wing policies at the state level. Her total compensation for 2021 was $302,911; in 2020, $328,396; in 2019, $347,249; in 2018, $349,866  ⁴⁰

Bonnie Scott Jones was Hopewell Fund executive director in 2017. Jones formerly worked as an attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, a left-leaning abortion-rights organization that has received large donations from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and the Borrego Foundation.  ^{41  42} Her total compensation in 2021 was $245,903; in 2020, $243,592; in 2018, $189,342.  ⁴³

Megan Cavanaugh was at that time the managing director for Resources for Abortion Delivery, a project of Hopewell Fund which provides financial support to private abortion clinics. Cavanaugh was previously employed by Planned Parenthood Federation of America, where she worked as the national director for affiliate services.  ⁴⁴ Her total compensation in 2021 was $236,366; in 2020, $238,192; in 2019, $234,090; in 2018, $234,178.  ⁴⁰

Natalie Foster was co-manager of the Economic Security Project, a Hopewell Fund project that advocates for a federal universal basic income scheme with funding from Facebook co-founder and liberal donor Chris Hughes, eBay founder and Democratic donor Pierre Omidyar, George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, and the Knight Foundation.  ⁴⁵ Foster is also a former Barack Obama campaign staffer and Democratic National Committee staffer who previously held leadership positions at the Sierra Club and MoveOn.org.  ⁴⁶ Her total compensation in 2020 was $220,008; in 2019, $210,084.  ⁴⁷

Scott Nielsen was a managing director for Hopewell Fund, according to the group’s website. He was a Hopewell Fund board member from 2015 to 2016 but left the board in 2017; Nielsen was not reported as a paid employee or board member in the group’s 2018 or 2019 tax returns.  ⁴⁸ Nielsen has a long history of working for left-leaning organizations as he previously worked as a program director for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and founded a consulting firm that provided services for left-wing organizations such as Open Society Foundations, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Democracy Alliance.  ⁴⁹

Tamer Mokhtar was a Hopewell Fund project director.  ⁵⁰ Mokhtar is the founder of All Americans Vote, a left-of-center voter mobilization group that favors young and racial-minority voters expected to support the Democratic Party, and a former employee of Investing in US, a for-profit investment management firm founded by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and former Progressive Policy Institute senior fellow Dmitri Mehlhorn to fund left-wing causes.  ⁵¹

Notable Donors

According to tax returns, the Hopewell Fund received a grant of $3,120,070 in 2017 from the Susan Thompson Buffet Foundation, a left-of-center philanthropic organization named for the late spouse of billionaire Warren Buffett.  ⁵²

The left-of-center Rockefeller Brothers Fund made multiple donations to the Hopewell Fund in 2017 according to the organization’s grants database.  ⁵³

Other major grantors to the Hopewell Fund have included the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Democracy Fund, the Stephen M. Silberstein Foundation, and a number of community foundations and donor-advised fund providers. A complete list of grants from foundations to the Hopewell Fund between 2015 and 2017 is available below:  ⁵⁴