Dark money: Arabella Advisors spent nearly $1.5 billion in 2023 mostly on progressive causes
Since 2008 Arabella Advisors received $336 million as contractors for their “business and administrative services”
In Feb. 2024 the Washington Free Beacon explained the Left-Wing Behemoth Arabella Advisors Quietly Added a Seventh Group to Its Dark Money Web. The article gave details of the newly added The Telescope Fund to the Arabella “family.”
Weeks later in April Scott Walter from the Capital Research Center published his book “Arabella: The Dark Money Network of Leftists Billionaires Transforming America.” Walter’s in-depth analysis gave many details of five funds managed by the Arabella Advisors.
The current list of the seven dark money “Funds” managed by Arabella Advisors includes the following, along with the span of years these funds have filed IRS 990 tax returns:
New Venture Fund, 2006-2023
Sixteen Thirty Fund, 2009-2023
Windward Fund, 2015-2023
Hopewell Fund, 2015-2023
North Fund, 2019-2023
Impetus Fund, 2020-2022
Telescope Fund, 2021-2023
This article explores the six IRS 990 tax filings for 2023, which were made public online last month, and the 2022 filing for the Impetus Fund from June 2023 (it has a different fiscal year).
In addition to the most recent filings for all seven dark money nonprofits, the article explores composite time series of key financials to show trends for the Arabella “family” collectively from 2008 to 2023.
There are many details to explore in the 571 pages of these recent IRS 990s, which will provide topics for future articles.
Fund summaries
The following table shows the Total Revenue, Total Expenses and Net Assets of the seven funds managed by Arabella Advisors based on their most recent filings.
The table also shows the number of grants to 501(c)(3) or government organizations and the number of grants to other organizations
In 2023 the seven nonprofits raised $1.35 billion, spent $1.48 billion and current have net assets of about $1.25 billion.
The seven Funds sent grant money to 1400 501(c)(3) organizations, as well as 421 other organizations.
Note 501(c)(3) organizations can give to either 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) organizations if certain rules are followed. For example the 501(c)(3) New Venture Fund gave to 770 other 501(c)(3) organizations, but also sent grants to 53 other organizations.
Fund transfers
The key financial data shown in the table above reflects exactly the numbers reported in the various IRS 990s.
However, a study of the grants given by each Fund shows transfers among the Arabella family, which means there’s a bit of double counting that is impossible to remove. This adds a bit of confusion to accounting.
The table below shows transfers between various funds, which means there nearly $60 million in double counting Total Revenue.
Example: The New Venture Fund reported $669,088,461 in Total Revenue, but then sent $37,795,870 to three other Arabella funds, including $27,601,875 to the Sixteen Thirty Fund. So, $27,601,875 of the $181,353,252 of the Sixteen Thirty’s Total Revenue came from the New Venture Fund.
Transfers to other dark money nonprofits
To add even more confusion to the flow of “dark money,” the Arabella family of funds gave $16,182,782 to other dark money nonprofits, including:
$4,190,352 to NEO Philanthropy
$3,413,785 to Tides Advocacy/Center/Foundation nonprofits
$8,578,645 to Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
Grants to individuals
In addition to the 823 grants the New Venture Fund sent to organizations, NVF gave grants directly to a small army of 7,702 progressive individuals. No other fund reported such grants to individuals.
Overall the average grant to an individual was about $5000.
The average grant to the 5 individuals working on Environmental Programs was slightly over $20,000, while the average for 8 individuals working on Civil Rights, Social Action, Advocacy was $14,500. The remaining 7699 Youth Development and Education grants averaged slightly less than $5000.
Fees paid to Arabella Advisors
According to the IRS 990s the Arabella Advisors have contracts with the seven funds for “business and administrative services.” Arabella serves as an “independent” contractor to the Funds.
The seven funds pay management fees to Arabella Advisors LLC at 1828 L St, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC according to the 990 filings.
The first five funds in the table above (New Venture, Sixteen Thirty, Windward, Hopewell and North) share this same address with the Arabella Advisors, except for a fund suffix letter added to the suite number (“300A”, “300B”, “300C”, “300D”, “300F”, respectively — why is “E” missing?).
The most recent two funds, Impetus and Telescope, have other downtown DC addresses.
There was one exception in 2023: The New Venture Fund paid $29,948,833 to the Arabella Intermediate Holdings LLC instead of Arabella Advisors LLC. It’s unclear what that means.
DC government records show “Intermediate Holdings” LLC started in late 2020, and a separate “Holdings” LLC started in mid-2021.
DC records show the two “Holdings” LLCs are Delaware corporations.
DC records also show the DC “Arabella Advisors LLC” is a Virginia corporation with the name “Arabella Philanthropic Investment Advisors LLC.” One of the “governors” of this LLC is the Chicago-based Arabella Acquisition LLC! How confusing.
The Hopewell Fund does not have a CEO/Executive Director according to its IRS filing but is managed by Arabella Advisors.
Time series
Looking at the financial data for a given year is a helpful snapshot of activities, but a composite look at all the activities in a give year is very difficult. That will take time.
Composite times series of key financial data from all the funds give clues about the direction of the Arabella dark money funds.
Total Revenues
The New Venture Fund started in 2006 under the name Arabella Legacy Fund and grew slowly. Other Funds were added over time,
The stacked bar plots below show a slow nearly linear increase in composite total revenues from 2012 through 2019. Then in 2020 there was an explosion in composite revenues of nearly $1.1 billion in one year.
Since 2020 the revenues have been slowly falling, almost linearly.
Total Expenses
Expenditures by the Arabella dark money funds jumped almost $200 million from 2017 to the 2018 election, but a staggering $700 million from 2019 to the 2020 election.
Spending took a breather in 2021, but continued its climb to $1.458 billion in 2022 and $1.481 billion in 2023.
Because of the delays in reporting by nonprofits (which are not supposed to be involved in political activity), the spending for the 2024 election might be known by next November when 2024 IRS 990s are filed.
Net Assets
The dark money behemoth steadily increased its net assets, which peaked in 2021 at $1.657 billion. The current composite assets in 2023 are $1.247 billion.
Payments to Arabella Advisors
The Arabella “independent contractor” claims they are doing what the Funds tell them to do. The Funds have paid Arabella $336 million since 2008.
In 2023 The Funds paid Arabella $48 million.
IRS 990s and Summary Data
Links below are to the PDF versions of IRS 990s returns for 2023 filed in Nov. 2024, except for the Impetus Fund that filed its 2022 return in June 2023.
The recent figures for Total Revenues, Total Expenses, Net Assets, and payments to Arabella Advisors were extracted from these IRS 990s, and other 990s back to 2006 when the New Venture Fund started under the name Arabella Legacy Fund.
The Excel file below has all these summary numbers, which were used to create the plots above.
Related
The Arabella Network’s Secret Client: Reclusive Billionaire Gwen Sontheim [The Telescope Fund], Parker Thayer, Capital Research Center, Nov. 14, 2024.
Important information for anyone tracking far left, woke 501c3 activities in the U.S. Kudos to Mr. Glynn for compiling these important 990 filings and transforming this raw data into valuable information.