Wellville
Wellville is a health-focused nonprofit project that operates in California, Connecticut, Oregon, Michigan, and South Carolina. 1 It is a fiscally sponsored project of the New Venture Fund, a left-of-center grantmaking group and the largest of the nonprofits created and managed by Arabella Advisors. 2 3
Contents
Background
Wellville is a fiscally sponsored project of the New Venture Fund, a left-of-center grantmaking group and the largest of the five nonprofits created and managed by Arabella Advisors. 2 3
Wellville is a 10-year project that was set to end in 2024. 4 The group operates in Clatsop County, Oregon; Lake County, California; Muskegon, Michigan; North Hartford, Connecticut; and Spartanburg, South Carolina, which are collectively referred to as the “Wellville 5.” The group tracks statistics on these communities such as poverty rates, education levels, health rankings, and teenage births. 5
People
The group was founded by Esther Dyson, a tech industry investor and the founding chair of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Dyson also served as director of the Sunlight Foundation and as a trustee of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 6
Rick Brush works as chief executive officer of Wellville. 7
Marya Stark serves as an advisor to Clatsop County, Oregon. Stark also served as the founding executive director of the left-of-center candidate training group, Emerge America. 7
Funding
Between 2014 and 2016, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation gave $200,892 to Wellville through the Fannie E. Rippel Foundation. 8 9