Sixteen Thirty Fund (1630 Fund)

The Sixteen Thirty Fund (sometimes styled “1630 Fund”) is a left-of-center lobbying and advocacy “dark money” organization founded in 2009. The group has been called “one of the left’s largest hubs of dark money” and “a clearinghouse of undisclosed cash for the left.” ^{1 2 3} Sixteen Thirty Fund often operates alongside its charitable 501(c)(3) “sister” nonprofit, New Venture Fund. Together the two provide pass-through-funding and fiscal sponsorship services to center-left organizations and “pop up” advocacy campaigns. Both groups, along with the Hopewell Fund, Windward Fund, North Fund, Telescope Fund, and Impetus Fund are administered by Arabella Advisors, a Washington, D.C.-based philanthropy consulting firm that “manages several ‘dark money’ funds that support Democrats and the progressive movement.” ⁴

Sixteen Thirty Fund is funded by grants from a wide range of wealthy left-of-center donors including several billionaires, labor unions, and other left-leaning activist groups and pass-through funders like donor advised funds (DAFs). Top donors to the group include the Berger Action Fund, which is funded by Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss; the Open Society Policy Center, which is funded by George Soros; Democracy Fund Voice, which is funded by Pierre Omidyar; and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Advocacy, which is funded by Mark Zuckerberg. ⁴

As of November 2025, Arabella Advisors announced that it would be ceasing operations after being acquired by a newly formed public benefit corporation (PBC) named Sunflower Services. A press release announcing the acquisition stared that Sunflower Services was owned by New Venture Fund, Windward Fund, and Hopewell Fund. ⁵

History

According to its founding documents, the Sixteen Thirty Fund was created with seed funding from Americans United for Change (AUFC), ACORN, USAction, the Sierra Club, and Working America. ⁶

The group received $350,745 in seed capital in 2009 from five left-wing organizations, including the scandal-ridden ACORN, which collapsed in 2010. ⁶

• Americans United for Change (AUFC): $221,745
• ACORN: $25,000
• USAction: $22,000
• Sierra Club: $10,000
• Working America: $72,000

For years after its founding, Sixteen Thirty Fund remained unknown to media and journalists. Some of the first press coverage of the group to be found covered the group’s role in opposing a successful 2013 recall effort against Democratic state legislators in Colorado over their votes in favor of a controversial gun-control measure. Sixteen Thirty Fund donated $35,000 to a Colorado group founded to defend Democratic state Sen. Angela Giron (D-Pueblo) from a recall effort. ⁷ Sixteen Thirty Fund donated another $35,000 to a group supporting Colorado state Sen. John Morse (D-Colorado Springs), who also supported stricter gun control. ⁸

In 2017, the Washington Free Beacon reported on the Sixteen Thirty Fund’s Allied Progress Action, and its efforts against several of President Donald Trump’s nominees cabinet nominees. Targeted nominees included businessman Andy Puzder (who would later withdraw as nominee for Secretary of Labor) and Steven Mnuchin (later confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury). The report was also one of the first to discover Sixteen Thirty Fund’s relationship to the New Venture Fund and Arabella Advisors. ⁹      

Financials

Since 2009, the Sixteen Thirty Fund has raised and spent over $1.3 billion.

Funders

Top donors to the Sixteen Thirty Fund include the Berger Action Fund, which is funded by Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss; the Open Society Policy Center, which is funded by George Soros; Democracy Fund Voice, which is funded by Pierre Omidyar; and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Advocacy, which is funded by Mark Zuckerberg. ⁴

The Washington Free Beacon reported that the Sixteen Thirty Fund received $860,000 from four labor unions in 2015 and 2016, including the AFL-CIO and the National Education Association. ¹⁰

Sixteen Thirty Fund also received over $4.5 million from the Atlantic Philanthropies, a Bermuda-based philanthropic enterprise that funded left-of-center organizations. ¹¹ Other known funders of Sixteen Thirty include the Tides Foundation. ¹²

In 2018, Politico identified a handful of liberal donors to the Fund: ¹³

The group does disclose the amount of money of each donation, which shows several strikingly large contributions: One donor gave the group $51,705,000; a second gave $26,747,561 and a third gave $10,000,000. And The Hub Project disclosed three of its donors in 2017: Seattle venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, the union American Federation of Teachers and the Wyss Foundation, founded by businessman and environmentalist Hansjörg Wyss. ¹³

The following lists show known donors to the Sixteen Thirty Fund from 2010 to 2018 (excluding the Arabella-run nonprofits Hopewell Fund and New Venture Fund) and 2019 to 2022: ^{14 4}

Grantees

While the Sixteen Thirty Fund primarily provides incubation (or fiscal sponsorship) services for pop-up groups, it also pays out large cash grants to left-of-center activism groups each year.

The following is a list of grants from Sixteen Thirty between 2013 and 2023: ¹⁵