The New Venture Fund (NVF) is a 501(c)(3) funding and fiscal sponsorship nonprofit that makes grants to left-of-center advocacy and organizing projects and provides incubation serves for other left-of-center organizations. The fund focuses primarily on social and environmental change, issuing grants for a variety of projects that include conservation, global health, disaster recovery, education, and the arts. [1]
Critics argue that New Venture Fund is a “dark money” organization, serving as a way for left-leaning groups to anonymously funnel money toward various advocacy issues, such as attacking vulnerable Republicans or pushing state-level environmental restrictions. [2]
NVF often operates alongside its 501(c)(4) “sister” nonprofit Sixteen Thirty Fund, which provides similar funding and fiscal sponsorship services to center-left advocacy organizations. Both groups are administered by Arabella Advisors, a Washington, D.C.-based philanthropy consulting firm that caters to left-leaning clients. New Venture Fund’s board of directors includes officers from Arabella Advisors, including the firm’s principal Eric Kessler.
The Hopewell Fund and Windward Fund are also 501(c)(3) nonprofits managed by Arabella Advisors that work closely with NVF and Sixteen Thirty Fund.
Background
Creation
Also see Eric Kessler
The New Venture Fund was created on October 25, 2006 in the District of Columbia as the Arabella Legacy Fund; the 501(c)(3) nonprofit received IRS recognition of its tax exemption in January 2007. In October 2009, the Arabella Legacy Fund was officially renamed the New Venture Fund. [3]
At the time of its formation, Eric Kessler served as president of the Fund. Kessler is the founder and senior managing partner of Arabella Advisors, a philanthropy consulting firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Fund’s founding board of directors in 2006-2007 consisted of Kessler, then-Illinois Nature Conservancy executive director Bruce Boyd, and then-Western Conservation Foundation executive director Adam Eichberg. [4]
NVF was created with grants from an unknown source totaling $3.725 million. From the start, it also had an administrative services agreement with Arabella Advisors (then Arabella Philanthropic Investment Advisors) to provide management and consulting services to the NVF. According to its description of activities, the NVF was created to pursue two purposes: [5]
[F]irst, it will engage in a program dedicated to protecting and preserving the environment from the detrimental effects of off-road vehicle use; second, it will engage in a program dedicated to the American Christian Evangelical environmental community, building a grassroots movement of Evangelicals and educating the American public regarding the Evangelical environmental message.
The NVF’s founding document further quotes three Psalms from the Bible in support of advancing an environmentalist agenda. The NVF also explained in the document its intent to provide an “Environmental Toolkit for Pastors”: [6]
The Environmental Toolkit for Pastors will be designed to enable Pastors to integrate creation-care teaching into their ministry. An important part of [the] Pastor’s toolkit will be materials for worship services that will celebrate all of God’s creation and explore how mankind can be better stewards of the His [sic] creation, including suggestions for hymns (including processional, worship and offertory hymns and hymns of commitment), invocations, New and Old Testament lessons, responsive readings and sermon outlines (or “seeds” whereby Pastors can create their own sermons).
Worship materials will be created for various topics, including global warming, air and water pollution, endangered species and the environment’s effect on human health . . . . In addition, the Pastor’s toolkit will include materials . . . to educate Pastors regarding creation care’s basis in Scripture, as well as fact sheets for Pastors and their congregations on various environmental topics and suggestions for how congregations can take action to care for God’s creation.
Initiatives
The New Venture Fund claims it has sponsored over 280 projects since its inception in 2006 touching a broad range of center-left issues. [7]
Allied Progress
Also see Allied Progress (Nonprofit)
In 2015, Allied Progress was formed using money from New Venture Fund to push for Congress not to overturn the country’s ban on crude oil exports. Allied Progress ran an advertisement campaign in Colorado, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, and New Mexico, urging voters to tell their senators they wanted to keep the ban. [8] Allied Progress Action is the sister to Allied Progress, and a project of the Sixteen Thirty Fund.
Education
New Venture Fund gave about $4 million to a failed Mississippi initiative in 2015 that would have given state judges power over school issues, including increased education spending. [9]
In a report over the National Education Association’s $138 million in spending in the 2016 fiscal year, Dropout Nation, an education reform website, pointed out the national teachers union gave $62,657 to New Venture Fund and $550,000 to Sixteen Thirty Fund, an endowment developed by Arabella Advisors. [10] Eric Kessler, the president and board chairman of New Venture Fund, also founded Arabella Advisors. [11]
Campaign for Accountability
Also see Campaign for Accountability (Nonprofit)
SiliconBeat reported that New Venture Fund was behind Campaign for Accountability, which did extensive research into Google’s relationship with the Obama White House and created the Google Accountability Project, a website that pointed out the tech giant’s heavy influence with the Obama administration. [12] The publication noted that New Venture Fund has received financial support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ($94 million between 2014 and 2016) and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation ($17 million during that period.)[13]
Funding
In 2017, the New Venture Fund reported revenues of $358,858,641, expenditures of $329,784,536, and net assets of $339,217,644. [14]
In 2016, the New Venture Fund reported revenues of $357,581,316, expenditures of $264,546,947, and net assets of $93,034,369. [15]
Grant Recipients
New Venture Fund reports providing grants for health and environmental issues on every populated continent on its 2015 IRS Form 990 tax filing. [16] Domestic recipients of New Venture Fund grants listed on the form include Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, Sierra Club Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, Equality Virginia, and Feminist Majority Foundation. [17]
Contractors
From 2007 to 2017, New Venture Fund reported contractor expenditures totaling $142,937,638. Of this, $68.2 million was paid to its management firm, Arabella Advisors. A list of all contractor, consulting, and management fees paid by the New Venture Fund between 2007 and 2017 is listed below. [18]
| New Venture Fund Contractors | |
|---|---|
| Sum | $142,717,065 |
| Contractor | Total (2007-2017) |
| Arabella Advisors | $68,220,330 |
| Tigercomm LLC | $2,20,573 |
| Purpose Campaigns LLC | $17,796,644 |
| Bullpen Integrated Marketing LLC | $11,915,145 |
| DCI Group AZ LLC | $8,325,682 |
| International Scholarship and Tuition SE | $6,896,527 |
| SKDKnickerbocker | $3,020,363 |
| Shepardson Stern & Kaminsky | $2,887,402 |
| GMMB Inc. | $2,773,957 |
| Hilltop Public Solutions | $2,499,822 |
| 270 Strategies Inc | $2,162,386 |
| Williamsworks | $1,851,281 |
| Home Front Communications | $1,816,689 |
| PBJS | $1,718,448 |
| Global Flight Relief | $1,516,838 |
| S&B Public Solutions LLC | $1,232,689 |
| STTEP International | $1,088,196 |
| Fair Elections Legal Network | $1,087,425 |
| Ional Media Research Plan and Placement | $997,787 |
| Group Inc. | $970,000 |
| Ridgeback USA | $659,998 |
| Turly Pictures | $638,729 |
| Parthenon Group | $605,000 |
| Tempus Jets | $586,248 |
| Global Health Strategies | $475,203 |
| Spitfire Strategies | $405,153 |
| Restone Strategy Group LLC | $400,000 |
| Ziemba Waid Public Affairs | $114,623 |
| Izaak Walton League of America Inc. | $54,500 |
Leadership
President
Lee Bodner serves as New Venture Fund’s president, after previously serving as managing director of Arabella Advisors. [19] He was founding executive director of ecoAmerica, a nonprofit focusing on educating the American public on conservation issues. While there, Bodner helped launch the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, which brought the climate change issue front and center in higher education. [20] The most recent IRS filing (Form 990) from 2017 for the New Venture Fund listed Bodner’s salary as $225,000.
Eric Kessler serves as chairman of the board of directors. He founded and serves as senior managing director of Arabella Advisors, a social venture firm working to increase the effectiveness of philanthropy that works in conjunction with New Venture Fund. [21] Kessler helped manage conservation issues around the globe for the Clinton administration. [22] Kessler served as founding president of the NVF from 2006 to 2015. [23]
Board of Directors
In 2017, the NVF’s board of directors consisted of board chair Eric Kessler; NVF president Lee Bodner; Arabella Advisors CFO Wilbur Priester; Arabella Advisors general counsel Andrew Schulz; Democratic Party political consultant Adam Eichberg; Katherine Miller; Daryn Dodson; Harry Drucker; Tom Gibian; and Yanique Gibian. [24]
Staff
The New Venture Fund’s highest-paid staffer in 2017 was Marc Kastner, project director of the Science Philanthropy Alliance (an NVF project). Kastner earned a salary of $530,540 in 2017. [25]
Documents
IRS Filings
The New Venture Fund’s 2017 IRS filing (Form 990) was acquired by the Capital Research Center in March 2019 and is available here.
The New Venture Fund’s 2016 IRS filing (Form 990) is available here.
Application for Tax Exemption
The New Venture Fund’s application for recognition of tax-exempt status under the IRS was filed in January 2007 and available here.