Arabella Advisors
Arabella Advisors, now operating as Sunflower Services, is a Washington, D.C.–based limited liability corporation that advises left-leaning donors and nonprofits about where to give money and manages several dark money groups supportive of the Democratic Party and the progressive movement. It was founded in 2005 by former Clinton administration appointee Eric Kessler. Between Arabella's founding in 2005 and 2021, Arabella raised $6.5 billion, the vast majority of which flowed to policy and litigation groups on the left.
Organizations incubated by and affiliated with Arabella Advisors include the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the New Venture Fund, the Hopewell Fund, the Windward Fund, the North Fund, and the Telescope Fund. These groups have been active in various efforts to oppose the Trump administration and to organize opposition to numerous Republican politicians and policies.
In November 2025, Arabella Advisors announced that it was rebranding to Sunflower Services, a new entity that will continue managing fiscal sponsorships for progressive advocacy groups. According to the Washington Free Beacon, "Under the rebrand, things will remain functionally the same for Arabella's dark money network, including the New Venture Fund, Windward Fund, and Hopewell Fund." The Chronicle of Philanthropy wrote that "This change marks a significant shift for the consultancy world, in which Arabella was among the best-known and most controversial entities of its kind."
Structure and funding
Founding and expansion
Arabella Advisors was founded in 2005 in Washington, D.C., by Eric Kessler as a limited liability corporation. Kessler's family owned Fel-Pro, an auto parts manufacturer in the Chicago area, and after selling the company for $750 million in 2005, he worked for the Family Alliance Foundation, a philanthropic organization formed with some of the proceeds of the sale. Kessler has also worked for the League of Conservation Voters, was a United States Department of the Interior appointee during the presidency of Bill Clinton, and spent six years working for the National Democratic Institute prior to founding Arabella Advisors. After the initial D.C. founding, Kessler quickly expanded the reach of the firm to Chicago with Bruce Boyd.Fiscal sponsorships
Arabella Advisors and its affiliated entities utilize tax regulations in which groups who use a fiscal sponsorship arrangement do not have to file a Form 990 with the Internal Revenue Service. Using "pass-through" arrangements, funding is passed from one organization to another, making it difficult to trace where a donor's money ends up.Revenue, finances, and donors
In 2018, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the New Venture Fund, the Hopewell Fund, and the Windward Fund had combined revenue of $635 million. According to OpenSecrets, in 2018 the Sixteen Thirty Fund had "thirteen multi-million dollar secret donors." One donor gave $51.7 million to the group in 2018, while another donor gave $26.7 million and a third gave $10 million. The group is not required by law to reveal its donors and it has not disclosed who its funders are. Known donors to the group include Nick Hanauer, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Wyss Foundation. Michael Bloomberg gave $250,000 to a super PAC linked to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, and Democratic donor group Democracy Alliance, whose members include billionaire George Soros, has recommended that donors give generously to the Sixteen Thirty Fund.The Arabella network spent nearly $1.2 billion in 2020 and raised $1.6 billion that same year.
Between 2020 and 2021, the New Venture Fund and the Windward Fund directed $473,000 to the Alliance for Global Justice, a group which funds and organizes anti-Israel protests across the United States. Following the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023, the Washington Examiner reported on the ties between the Alliance for Global Justice and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Soon after, the New Venture Fund and Windward Fund announced they would no longer provide funding to the Alliance for Global Justice due to its ties to Palestinian terrorist groups.
In 2022, Arabella raised $1.3 billion and spent $900 million.
In May 2023, Arabella laid off 10% of its workforce. In July 2023, the company announced that CEO Rick Cruz would depart on August 1.
The New York Times wrote in August 2025 that the Gates Foundation, which is America's largest foundation, had "quietly ceased backing" a network of organizations associated with Arabella and specifically, that it would cease "making grants to nonprofit funds administered by the consulting firm Arabella Advisors". The Gates Foundation had been one of the earliest and largest funders to the Arabella network, providing $450 million in funding over sixteen years. The Gates Foundation's decision inspired alarm in some organizations that have been fiscally sponsored through the Arabella network and "has sparked unease in the world of progressive philanthropy."
According to The Atlantic, Arabella Advisors has "undeniably benefited from the rush of panicked political giving on the left during the Trump years". In 2020, the Sixteen Thirty Fund donated $410 million toward defeating Trump and winning Democratic control of the U.S. Senate. Because of its legal structure, Arabella Advisors and its affiliated groups are not required to disclose their donors, and they have not opted to do so. Billionaires George Soros and Pierre Omidyar have disclosed multi-million donations to the network. Politico has described the Sixteen Thirty Fund as a "left-leaning, secret-money group", writing that the group "illustrates the extent to which the left embraced the use of 'dark money' to fight for its causes in recent years. After decrying big-money Republican donors over the last decade, as well as the Supreme Court rulings that flooded politics with more cash, Democrats now benefit from hundreds of millions of dollars of undisclosed donations as well."
Strategy and reception
According to Politico, the Sixteen Thirty Fund's activities are "a sign that Democrats and allies have embraced the methods of groups they decried as 'dark money' earlier this decade, when they were under attack from the money machines built by conservatives including the Kochs".In March 2025, Capital Research Center president Scott Walter briefed senior White House officials on a range of liberal and Democratic donors, nonprofits, and fundraising techniques, including Arabella Advisors. Walter is the author of a book about Arabella Advisors, Arabella: The Dark Money Network of Leftist Billionaires Secretly Transforming America, published in 2023. Of the White House briefing, Kenneth Vogel of The New York Times wrote that "A small group of White House officials has been working to identify targets and vulnerabilities inside the Democratic ecosystem, taking stock of previous efforts to investigate them" and that "The president and his allies in Congress are targeting the financial, digital and legal machinery that powers the Democratic Party and much of the progressive political world." According to The Wall Street Journal, a focus of Walter's briefing was on nonprofits that CRC alleges have promoted views tied to Hamas and are supported by foreign donors.
The Sixteen Thirty Fund
The Sixteen Thirty Fund is a liberal nonprofit headquartered in Washington D.C. Because it is a nonprofit, the Sixteen Thirty Fund is not required to disclose its donors, even though it spends significant amounts on politics. As of 2019, it had spent $141 million on more than 100 left-leaning and Democratic causes, making it a large source of money for nonprofits pushing a variety of changes to state and federal law. The Atlantic called the Sixteen Thirty Fund "the indisputable heavyweight of Democratic dark money," noting that it was the second-largest super-PAC donor in 2020, donating $61 million of "effectively untraceable money to progressive causes."The Sixteen Thirty Fund supports Democratic lawmakers and candidates and criticizes Republicans. The group spent money opposing the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and other Trump judicial nominees and supporting various ballot measures.
The Sixteen Thirty Fund was behind several groups that ran issue advocacy ads to benefit Democrats during the 2018 midterms. The group also funded Demand Justice, which spent millions of dollars on ads attacking Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. According to OpenSecrets, the Sixteen Thirty Fund and New Venture Fund "have fiscally sponsored at least 80 of their own groups, bankrolling those entities in a way that leaves almost no paper trail."
The Sixteen Thirty Fund was active in the battle for the House of Representatives in 2018, assisting "Democrats trying to seize back power after Trump's rise." According to Politico, "The election featured dozens of Democratic candidates who decried the influence of money in politics on the campaign trail."
The Sixteen Thirty Fund operates under dozens of different trade names with titles like Arizonans United for Health Care, Floridians for a Fair Shake, Michigan Families for Economic Prosperity, and North Carolinians for a Fair Economy. These groups have collectively spent millions of dollars to pressure Republican members of Congress on their stances on health care and economic issues through advertising and activism.
The Sixteen Thirty Fund spent almost $11 million in the 2018 Colorado elections on ballot measures, lobbying, and Democratic super PACs.
In 2019, the fund raised $137 million.
The Sixteen Thirty Fund spent $410 million in 2020, largely focused on helping Democrats defeat President Donald Trump and winning back control of the United States Senate. The group financed attack ads against Trump and vulnerable Republican senators and funded various issue advocacy campaigns. Funding went to groups opposing Trump's Supreme Court nominees, supporting liberal ballot measures and policy proposals at the state level, and opposing Republican tax and health care policies. The Sixteen Thirty Fund gave $10.5 million to the conservative anti-Trump group Defending Democracy Together, which was founded by Bill Kristol in 2018.
In 2020, the Sixteen Thirty Fund raised $390 million, with half of that amount coming from just four donors. Billionaire Pierre Omidyar disclosed that he gave the group $45 million that same year. The group also received mystery donations as large as $50 million and disseminated grants to more than 200 groups. It gave $0.5 million to the group Colorado Families First to support a proposed ballot initiative requiring paid family leave in the state.