The Learning Together Project Fund is a project of the Hopewell Fund, a funding organization managed by Arabella Advisors, a consultancy based in Washington, D.C. that caters to left-leaning clients. The Fund’s main activity consists of supporting programs that fulfill businesses’ promises to support left-progressive causes under the banner of “corporate social responsibility” through low-investment, minimal virtual mentoring programs, which connect employees with students to discuss pre-selected materials.

Background

The Learning Together Project Fund financially supports two online programs of Cricket Media, Inc., an international education company: CricketTogether and TryEngineering Together. ¹

CricketTogether

CricketTogether participating firms have their employees “eMentor” children in third through fifth grade, discussing pre-selected articles, questions, and themes. Cricket Media’s informational page for CricketTogether boasts that the program is “designed specifically to support today’s busy employee,” which necessitates only “a few hours a month” of virtual mentorship. ²

TryEngineering Together

TryEngineering Together is designed along the same lines as CricketTogether, similarly involving students in third to fifth grade and entailing an equivalent amount of employee-time investment. Unlike CricketTogether, however, TryEngineering Together is focused on servicing engineering and other technical firms and the content of virtual mentorship revolves around STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) articles and talking points. In addition to Cricket Media, Inc., IEEE (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), a professional association for engineers and other technical workers, is a joint partner of the service. ³⁴

Hopewell Fund

The Hopewell Fund, the Learning Together Project Fund’s parent organization, is a 501(c)(3) funding and fiscal sponsorship nonprofit organization managed by Arabella Advisors, a consulting firm with largely left-leaning clients in Washington, D.C. focused on philanthropic management. Aside from the Learning Together Project Fund, the Hopewell Fund also manages a variety of other organizations, none of which are registered as non-profits in their own right and that are largely single-issue in focus. Such groups include Arizonans For Responsible Government, the Economic Security Project, Equity Forward (Equity Fwd), Get America Covered, Impact Project, Over Zero, Players Coalition, and Resources for Abortion Delivery. ⁵⁶

The Hopewell Fund operates alongside and in concert with Arabella Advisors’ other non-profit ventures: the Sixteen Thirty Fund (sometimes styled “1630”), a 501(c)(4) advocacy group which operates a range of similarly organizationally indistinct center-left projects; the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) advocacy organization which operates a variety of socially oriented political advocacy projects, some of which have taken on independent status; and the Windward Fund, a 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsorship organization, which focuses on environmentalist projects and is the smallest of Arabella’s managed funds. ⁷⁸

1. “THE LEARNING TOGETHER PROJECT FUND.” Hopewell Fund. Accessed June 22, 2020. https://www.hopewellfund.org/project-directory/#:~:text=The%20Learning%20Together%20Project%20Fund%20supports%20two%20online%20eMentoring%20programs,their%20academic%20and%20personal%20potential.&text=eMentors%20boost%20students’%20confidence%2C%20motivate,the%20world%20outside%20their%20neighborhood.
2. “About CricketTogether™.” Cricket Media. Accessed June 22, 2020. http://cricketmedia.com/meet-crickettogether/ct-about-us
3. “About TryEngineering Together™.” Cricket Media. Accessed June 22, 2020. http://cricketmedia.com/meet-tryengineering-together/tet-about-us/
4. “Meaning of I-E-E-E.” IEEE. Accessed June 22, 2020. https://www.ieee.org/about/ieee-history.html#:~:text=IEEE%2C%20pronounced%20%22Eye%2Dtriple,is%20the%20full%20legal%20name.
5. “THE ECONOMIC SECURITY PROJECT.” Hopewell Fund. Accessed June 22, 2020. https://www.hopewellfund.org/project-directory/#:~:text=The%20Learning%20Together%20Project%20Fund%20supports%20two%20online%20eMentoring%20programs,their%20academic%20and%20personal%20potential.&text=eMentors%20boost%20students’%20confidence%2C%20motivate,the%20world%20outside%20their%20neighborhood.
6. Ludwig, Hayden. “Big Money in Dark Shadows: Arabella Advisors’ Half-billion-dollar ‘Dark Money’ Network.” Capital Research Center (DarkMoneyATM.org). Accessed June 20, 2020. https://darkmoneyatm.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/CRC_Arabella-Advisors-Dark-Money_small.pdf
7. Bland, Scott; Maggie Severns. “Documents reveal massive ‘dark-money’ group boosted Democrats in 2018.” Politico. Novemeber 11, 2019. Accessed June 22, 2020. https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/19/dark-money-democrats-midterm-071725
8. Ludwig, Hayden. “Big Money in Dark Shadows: Arabella Advisors’ Half-billion-dollar ‘Dark Money’ Network.” Capital Research Center (DarkMoneyATM.org). Accessed June 20, 2020. https://darkmoneyatm.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/CRC_Arabella-Advisors-Dark-Money_small.pdf