• The Arabella Network has doubled its investment in North Carolina politics since it opened an in-state office in 2020
  • U.S. election laws that prevent candidates and parties from receiving foreign money do not apply to nonpartisan groups that engage in elections through spending on behalf of candidates or on get-out-the-vote efforts
  • Just in direct financing of nonprofits, the Arabella Network put more than $19 million into North Carolina in 2023

The money involved in all aspects of U.S. elections has grown over the years, but no subsector has grown as much as the nonprofit sector. While barred from traditional election participation (such as direct candidate donations or independent expenditures), nonprofits fuel what is typically called “dark money.” For Democrats and left-wing groups, the godfather of the nonprofit sector is Arabella Advisors, or more specifically, the Arabella Network.

What is the Arabella Network?

Arabella Advisors is a philanthropic consulting company that oversees a handful of nonprofits, all of which oversee a multitude of left-leaning projects and organizations. When accounting for the seven nonprofits in the Arebella Network, they provided nearly $1 billion in grants in 2023 alone.

While these nonprofits are legally distinct and don’t receive funding from Arabella Advisors directly, they were all founded and run by Arabella Advisors’ head, Eric Kessler, until recently. These organizations also pay homage to Arabella Advisors through consulting and management fees, as seen in their various Form 990 reports, annual information returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The seven nonprofits include 501(c)(3) organizations (tax-deductible nonprofits), which act as fundraising arms that finance and house various projects under their umbrellas, and 501(c)(4) organizations, which act as the network’s lobbying arms.

The 501(c)(3) organizations include:

  1. New Venture Fund: The largest financial group, housing hundreds of sponsored projects
  2. Hopewell Fund: Primarily focused on pro-abortion issues and creating pop-up left-wing news sites
  3. Windward Fund: Focuses on sponsoring environmental projects
  4. Telescope Fund: Originally starting as a project under New Venture Fund, it now funds left-leaning network organizations like Blueprint NC

While the influence of the 501(c)(3) organizations can be seen mostly through their finances, the 501(c)(4) organizations impact federal and state politics through both direct and indirect means. These 501(c)(4) organizations include:

  1. Sixteen Thirty Fund: The “indisputable heavyweight of Democratic dark money,” which houses most of their left-wing advocacy groups
  2. North Fund: An advocacy group best known for its efforts to modify and pack the U.S. Supreme Court and abolish the Electoral College
  3. Impetus Fund: the newest organization, focused on get-out-the-vote efforts

Because of the nature of nonprofit funding, it’s not always easy to see how much these groups are involved in any particular issue. While the Arabella Network has a national design, its impact can be felt in states like North Carolina. According to 990 reports, the Arabella Network has provided nearly $56 million in funding to organizations based in North Carolina since 2015.

Where the funding comes from

Though nonprofits do not have to disclose their donors, you can find where large portions of their funds come from by tracking grant contributions from other organizations. This method shows that the Arabella Network receives substantial funds from other left-wing foundations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, to name a few.

While foundations can’t give to 501(c)(4) organizations that can engage in lobbying and endorsement of candidates, how nonprofits can move money around from one to the other can eventually allow those funds to be used in those ways. For example, New Venture Fund moved money into the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a Mark Zuckerberg–backed organization that worked to boost Democratic turnout, including in North Carolina.

The entities that make up the Arabella Network transfer funds among themselves, partially to obscure these donations and also to allow money from foundations to move into 501(c)(4) nonprofits.

Though it is illegal for non–U.S. citizens to contribute to American elections through traditional means, such as contributions to candidates, political parties, or PACs, no such restriction is in place for nonprofits. This loophole is how Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss was able to move $475 million into various organizations to influence U.S. politics and elections through his nonprofits. The Arabella Network can be linked directly to $265 million from Wyss’s Berger Action Fund and Wyss Foundations.

Arabella Advisors has strong ties to the Chicago-based Financial Investment Corporation (FIC), a juggernaut in the finance world. With Concentric Equity Partners, a subsidiary of FIC, holding majority ownership of the organization, and FIC’s CEO, Jennifer Steans, listed as the “single beneficial owner” of Arabella Advisors, the sway over the largest dark money network is clear.

Influence in North Carolina

Over the last few years, the Arabella Network has heavily emphasized getting dark money into political battleground states like North Carolina. The Sixteen Thirty Fund alone put $9.5 million into North Carolina in the 2020 election. Most of that went toward Fair Future NC and Piedmont Rising, organizations that focused on beating Republican legislative candidates as well as incumbent U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis.

North Carolina is a particularly prized pick-up for many on the political left, and the Arabella Network is no exception. In 2020, Arabella Advisors opened its fifth office, choosing to set up shop in Durham. Just accounting for organizations based in North Carolina, the Arabella Network has directly financed roughly $56 million in the state, mostly for left-wing organizations. Recipients of Arabella’s largesse include Blueprint NC, Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Democracy North Carolina, We Are Down Home, North Carolina Justice Center, States Newsroom, ACLU of North Carolina, Common Cause, and more.

Their influence can be felt in direct electioneering and indirect influence in politics. An example of indirect influence can be seen in the organization “Cardinal and Pine,” a subgroup of Courier Newsroom, set up to masquerade as a news organization in order to influence voters through “curated coverage.” A similar group is State Newsroom, which “operates a network of left-wing and hyper-partisan fake news websites.”

They also finance local left-wing networks like Blueprint NC, which acts as a coalition for the state’s left-leaning organizations. Blueprint NC is most famous for its leaked memo in 2013 calling to “eviscerate, mitigate, litigate, cogitate and agitate” the state’s Republican leadership.

The group was a key part of the state’s original Moral Monday Rallies and has remained an active force in North Carolina’s elections and political battles. From 2020 to 2023, Blueprint NC received more than $4 million in direct contributions from the Arabella Network.

While creating a fully exhaustive list of how much money the Arabella Network has put into North Carolina is challenging, it’s impossible to deny its influence in the state. In 2023 alone, their network put more than $19 million into the state. If history is any indication, when tax filings for 2024 are released, we may even see the Arabella Network’s spending reach a comparable level to the $80 million for all North Carolina legislative races in 2024.