Tag Archive for: arabella advisors

Hundreds of Millions in Taxpayer Dollars Went to Antifa and Terror Groups

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The White House just announced they discovered that over $100 MILLION in taxpayer funds and laundered Democrat donations went to Antifa-linked organizations and “protest networks.”

Funders include:

  • Soros’ Open Society
  • Arabella Advisors
  • Tides Network
  • Hansjörg Wyss
  • Neville Roy Singham, with ties to Armed Queers SLC who is being investigated in the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

This madness must end. We are funding our own destruction and the Democrats that have orchestrated this must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

A foreign billionaire who has given *half a billion dollars* to left-wing political groups in the United States has STOPPED ALL FUNDING after getting getting called out in a bombshell report

And far left universities like Harvard, Columbia, Stanford et al destroying a whole generation of young minds, turning them into violent zombies, incapable of critical thought.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller 

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

White House Releases Names of Funders of ANTIFA

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Citizen Watch Report’s wrote:

White House releases names funding Antifa, protests and violence in America. We paid for our own protests with over $100 million laundered by Democrats.

We found a network of NGOs.

  • George Soros, the Open Society Network
  • Arabella Funding Network
  • The Tides FIShing Network
  • Neville Roy Singham and his network
  • Johann Georg “Hansjörg” Wyss a billionaire donor in Switzerland
  • Additional Foreign Cash

The China – Antifa Connection

The Washington Stand’s S.A. McCarthy reported:

Another Antifa funding source is ex-Microsoft executive Neville Roy Singham, who fled the U.S. and is now based in China, where he has strong links and financial ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and reportedly engages in generating CCP propaganda. Singham has distributed at least $100 million to various U.S.-based protest groups, including those linked to Antifa. Swiss pharmaceutical billionaire Hansjörg Wyss has also been linked to funding Antifa affiliates, according to Brunner. Other “Riot Inc.” investors allegedly covertly funding Antifa activism include the Democrat-aligned Arabella Advisors Network, the progressive grant-maker Tides Foundation, and foreign funding sources, such as Antifa International.

“Like any corporation, rioting has many divisions. It doesn’t just have the Antifa boots-on-the-ground division, it has PR divisions, it has marketing divisions, it has a very well-funded legal division to get these boots-on-the-ground back on the streets as quickly as possible,” Brunner told the president. “This money helps fund the decentralized crowdfunding platforms,” he added, referring to reportedly foreign-influenced crowdfunding networks that provide Antifa members and affiliates with gear and materials for riots and coverage for bail and legal fees. “Just because they don’t have LLCs or EIN numbers doesn’t mean they can’t get paid. Some of these crowdfunding platforms are funded by this network that we call Riot Inc.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, Brunner explained, “Antifa isn’t some spontaneous grassroots movement, it’s a coordinated network with funding streams that trace back to powerful interests, both foreign and domestic.” He continued, “Our research has shown that many of the same nonprofit and dark money structures that bankroll left-wing protest movements in the U.S. also support Antifa-aligned groups abroad. Money flows through cutouts: so-called ‘anti-fascist’ groups in Europe, donor-advised funds in the U.S., and even crowdfunding networks designed to obscure donors.”

Read the full article.

According to Discover the Networks:

The Open Society Foundations (OSF) were founded as the Open Society Institute in 1993 by the multibillionaire hedge-fund manager George Soros, and took its current name in 2010. When Soros attended the London School of Economics (LSE) beginning in 1947, he was exposed to the works of the Viennese-born philosopher Karl Popper, who taught at LSE, and whom Soros would later call his “spiritual mentor.”[1] Most notably, Popper’s 1945 book The Open Society and Its Enemies introduced Soros to the concept of an “open society,” which affected him greatly.[2]

The term “open society” had been originally coined in 1932 by the French philosopher Henri Louis Bergson, to describe societies whose moral codes were founded upon “universal” principles seeking to enhance the welfare of all mankind—as opposed to “closed” societies that placed self-interest above any concern for other nations and cultures.[3]

[ … ]

Today Soros’s Open Society Foundations are active in more than 70 countries around the world.[10]  OSF is chiefly devoted to injecting capital into U.S.-based groups and causes. In his book Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism, Soros explains that the “open society” which he has consistently sought to advance by means of philanthropy, “stands for freedom, democracy, rule of law, human rights, social justice, and social responsibility as a universal idea.”[11]

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Scott Walter in his book Arabella: The Dark Money Network of Leftist Billionaires Transforming America reports:

While figures like George Soros, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg are known for their hefty political donations, few Americans have heard of Arabella Advisors. Even more powerful than these standalone billionaires, Arabella is a secretive “dark money” operation that channels megadonor funds into leftist political causes via pop-up groups designed to look like innocent grassroots outfits.

The sheer quantity of money that has flowed through Arabella’s channels is staggering. In the 2020 election cycle, Arabella’s nonprofits took in $2.4 billion, more than the fundraising of the Democratic and Republican National Committees combined. In the 2022 election cycle, Arabella’s fundraising rose to $3 billion.

In this book, Scott Walter reveals the major role that Arabella has played in battles over Supreme Court nominations, abortion, women’s sports, school discipline, Medicare for All, environmental policies, fake local news outlets, “Zuck Bucks” that manipulate election offices, and much more.

This mountain of money and influence aimed at transforming America explains why even left-leaning major media are alarmed. Arabella is “the indisputable heavyweight of Democratic dark money,” warns the Atlantic. A “dark-money behemoth,” says Politico. An “opaque network,” says the New York Times, that funnels “hundreds of millions of dollars through a daisy chain of groups supporting Democrats and progressive causes.”

Citizens from across the political spectrum will be shocked to learn how Arabella has covertly developed the darkest of “dark money” networks.

You may purchase Arabella at Encounter Books or Amazon.

Copilot Search reports:

Neville Roy Singham, born on May 13, 1954, is an American businessman and social activist known for founding ThoughtWorks, an IT consulting company, and for his involvement in various political and social causes.

Education<

Neville Roy Singham was born in the United States to a Sri Lankan father, Archibald Wickeramaraja Singham, a political scientist and historian, and a Cuban mother, Shirley Hune. He attended Howard University, where he pursued a degree in political science, and later continued his studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In his youth, he was involved with the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, a Black nationalist-Maoist group, and worked at a Chrysler plant in Detroit.

Career

Singham founded ThoughtWorks in the late 1980s, which was incorporated in 1993. The company specializes in custom software development and consulting services. Under his leadership, ThoughtWorks grew significantly, opening offices in various countries, including China, and employing thousands of people. In 2017, he sold ThoughtWorks for $785 million to a private equity firm.

From 2001 to 2008, Singham served as a strategic technical consultant for Huawei, a major Chinese telecommunications company. His work with ThoughtWorks and Huawei positioned him as a significant figure in the tech industry. 

Activism and Controversies

Singham is known for his socialist views and support for Maoism. He has been involved in funding media outlets and organizations that promote pro-Chinese government narratives. In recent years, he has faced scrutiny for his alleged connections to the Indian news website NewsClick, which has been accused of disseminating Chinese propaganda. In November 2023, he was summoned for questioning by the Enforcement Directorate in India regarding a money laundering case linked to NewsClick. 

Personal Life

Neville Roy Singham is married to Jodie Evans, co-founder of the anti-war organization Code Pink. They married in 2017, and their wedding was attended by several notable figures. Singham has a son, Nathan Singham, who works for the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, which he funds. Currently, he resides in Shanghai, China, where he continues his business and activism.
Singham’s life and career reflect a blend of entrepreneurial success and political activism, making him a notable figure in discussions about technology, media, and international relations.

Discover the Networks reports:

Hansjorg Wyss was born in Bern, Switzerland on September 19, 1935. He earned an MS degree in Civil and Structural Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1959, and an MBA from the Harvard University Graduate School of Business in 1965. After completing his education, Wyss was employed in the textile industry in places like Pakistan, Turkey, and the Philippines. He also worked in the steel industry in Belgium, during which time he ran a side business selling airplanes. One of his buyers was a surgeon who in 1960 had co-founded the Swiss medical-device manufacturer Synthes; this encounter eventually led to Wyss becoming the founder and president of Synthes’s U.S. division in 1977.

In 1998, Mr. Wyss established the Wyss Foundation, which later became a member of the Democracy Alliance, as a philanthropy dedicated to supporting “projects in areas from conservation and education to economic opportunity and social justice.” As of March 2015, Wyss and his Foundation had donated more than $350 million to environmental causes. The recipients of those funds were largely leftist organizations that view capitalism and human industrial activity as inherently destructive of the natural world. In 2010, for instance, Wyss contributed $35 million to help the Trust for Public Land (TPL) and the Nature Conservancy purchase 310,000 acres of private timberlands in northern Montana, to protect grizzly bear and wolverine habitats from encroachment by business and industry. In 2013 he donated $4.25 million to TPL, to purchase oil and gas leases on 58,000 acres Wyoming’s Hoback Basin and thereby protect the region from development. That same year, Wyss spent $2 million to help dismantle the 100-year-old Veazie Dam and thus restore fish passage in Maine’s Penobscot River. And in 2015, Wyss Foundation funds helped the Nature Conservancy purchase 3,184 acres along the Hoh River in Washington, in an effort to increase salmon populations there.[1]

In addition, Mr. Wyss has established a number of endowed chairs in medicine; he supports research, education, and training at numerous universities and hospitals; in 2009 he contributed $125 million to Harvard University to fund the establishment of a biological institute bearing his name; in 2013 he pledged another $125 million to Harvard; and in 2014 he pledged $120 million to help two Swiss universities create a center dedicated to the acceleration of medical breakthroughs.[2]

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©2025 . All rights reserved.

Liberal Foundations Poured Tens Of Millions Of Dollars Into Influential Environmental Org Tied To Chinese Government

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Major U.S.-based liberal charitable foundations have donated millions of dollars to Energy Foundation China (EFC), a San Francisco-based environmental nonprofit with deep ties to the Chinese government.

U.S.-based liberal charities, such as the Hewlett Foundation and nonprofits managed by left-wing dark money consultancy Arabella Advisors, have poured over $100 million into EFC since 2020, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of tax filings and foundation grant databases. EFC uses those funds to bankroll U.S.-based climate activists and to support the development of clean energy in China.

EFC has close ties to the Chinese state; at least nine members of the organization’s leadership and senior staff have previously held positions in China’s government, with one described in a Tsinghua University press release as an “outstanding [Chinese] Communist Party member.”

EFC spent more than $52 million funding green projects and organizations in the United States and China in 2022, according to tax forms.

EFC funds several of the U.S.-based organizations that have played a role in influencing the Biden administration’s climate agenda. American groups funded by EFC have, among other things, opposed the development of new oil drilling sites and promoted renewable energy technologies, like solar panels.

Green Cash

Liberal foundations have poured millions into EFC over the last four years, specifically for climate and energy programs in China, tax documents and grant databases show.

EFC had been a program under the Energy Foundation before breaking off and becoming an independent legal entity in 2019, according to its website. Prior to 2019, grants from charitable foundations to EFC were made out to the Energy Foundation and earmarked for EFC.

The Packard Foundation, Hewlett Foundation and MacArthur Foundation, all major players in American environmental activism, were some of EFC’s largest donors, representing almost 40% of the over $217.1 million the group raised between 2020 and 2022.

The MacArthur Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation donated at least $6 million and $67 million to EFC, respectively, between 2020 and 2023. The Packard Foundation, meanwhile, has donated about $19.3 million to the organization since 2020, according to its grant database.

Likewise, senior employees of the MacArthur Foundation, the Packard Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation hold seats on EFC’s board of directors.

The MacArthur Foundation gave EFC $2 million between 2020 and 2021 to help “China transition to a sustainable energy future,” according to its tax filings.

The Hewlett Foundation, meanwhile, paid out grants explicitly to fund EFC’s pro-Chinese government activities.

The Energy Foundation, which housed EFC at the time, received $8.4 million from the Hewlett Foundation in 2016 in part to fund EFC’s efforts to support the “climate implementation goals for China’s 13th Five-Year Plan.”

China’s Five-Year plan is formulated by the CCP and “sets forth China’s strategic intentions and defines its major objectives” for a five year period, according to the Chinese government.

Furthermore, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund gave EFC $200,000 in 2021 to support “low carbon transportation planning in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao greater bay area.” Rockefeller Brothers spent $200,000 bankrolling a similar project in 2019.

EFC’s donors, while funding the organization’s China-based activities, also served as major backers of domestic liberal activists. The Packard, Hewlett and MacArthur foundations, for instance, have poured millions of dollars into Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups, according to tax filings.

The Energy Foundation’s activities in China also attracted significant support from entities tied to the Democratic Party.

The Heising-Simons Foundation, a California-based family charity founded by Democratic megadonors Liz Simons and Mark Heising. The foundation gave $925,000 to the Energy Foundation for its Chinese operations in 2017 and about $2.3 million in 2018, when EFC was still part of the Energy Foundation, according to tax forms.

Simons and Heising have donated nearly $10 million to Democrats and members of Congress who caucus with the Democrats since 2020, campaign finance records show.

Windward Fund and Hopewell Fund, nonprofits managed by the Democrat-aligned consultancy Arabella Advisors, supported EFC to the tune of nearly $2.5 million between 2020 and 2022, according to tax filings.

Several of the funds managed by Arabella Advisors are “dark money” organizations that are not required to disclose their donors and direct the bulk of their grants to left-wing and Democrat-aligned groups. Hopewell and Windward disclose their donors, however Hopewll received funds from Sixteen Thirty Fund, an organization in Arabella’s network that does not disclose donors, according to tax forms.

“Windward Fund recognizes that the climate crisis is a global challenge,” the organization said in a statement to the DCNF.

The Packard Foundation, Heising Simons Foundation, Hopewell Fund, MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Hewlett Foundation did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

The China Connection

Former Chinese government officials have an outsized presence among EFC’s leadership and senior staff.

Zhang Hongjun, who is on EFC’s board of directors, was an official in China’s National Environmental Protection Agency and a legislative director in China’s National People’s Congress, focusing on environmental laws, according to EFC’s website.

The National People’s Congress (NPC) is “the highest organ of State power in China,” according to its website. The NPC operates under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and leaders of the NPC’s standing committee, a powerful subset of the NPC, are “invariably influential members of the CCP and leaders of major mass organizations,” according to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

He Kebin, another board member, was a representative in the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress in 2018, according to Sina, a Chinese-language media outlet. The Beijing Municipal People’s Congress works under the direct leadership of the CCP in implementing policy and providing services in China’s capital city, according to a report published by the mayor of Beijing in January 2023.

A group of universities in Beijing awarded Kebin the title of “outstanding member of the [Chinese] communist party” at a celebration marking the 99th anniversary of the CCP, according to a press release from Tsinghua University.

Several board members, including Kebin and Hongjun, are listed as council members on the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development’s (CCICED) website. CCICED was founded in 1992 with the approval of the Chinese government and advises the Chinese government on environmental policy and development, according to the organization’s website.

CCICED reports to the Chinese government’s State Council and its executive committee is staffed by several high-ranking Chinese government officials, according to the organization’s website.

CCICED Chairman Ding Xuexiang is the top-ranking vice premier of the People’s Republic of China and a member of the CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee, a seven-person Chinese government body headed by General Secretary Xi Jinping.

Other EFC board members are listed as special advisors for CCICED, including Shenyu Belsky, Hongpeng Lei and EFC President Zou Ji.

Zou Ji formerly served as deputy director general of China’s state-run National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation, and he was a key player in China’s delegation to the Paris Climate Accords in 2015, according to his bio on EFC’s website.

EFC paid Ji almost $500,000 in 2021 for his work as the group’s president and CEO, according to the organization’s 2021 tax filing. Board members Kebin and Hongjun drew compensation of $6,000 and $4,500, respectively, according to the 2021 filing.

EFC’s Senior Program Director of Strategic Communications Hui Jing formerly worked at the state-run National Natural Science Foundation of China, and Lan Yu, a program officer for EFC’s Low Carbon Economic Growth initiative, previously served in China’s finance and environmental ministries, according to their respective bios on EFC’s website.

Xin Liu, who leads EFC’s environmental management division, formerly served as a senior official in the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, and Ping He, who is the program director of EFC’s industry program, worked at the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences for almost a decade, according to EFC’s website.

While the organization’s tax forms say it’s based in San Francisco, EFC also has an office in Beijing, which, according to the group’s website, is “registered with the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau and supervised by the National Development and Reform Commission of China.”

The National Development and Reform Commission of China (NDRC) is a Chinese government agency that exists to “formulate and implement strategies on national economic and social development” and create “strategies, plans and policies for utilizing foreign capital,” according to the NDRC’s website. The commission also is involved with the Chinese military as it “undertake[s] specific tasks of the National Defense Mobilization Committee,” according to its website.

Additionally, EFC disclosed a payment of nearly $400,000 for “consulting services” to the state-run China News Service on its 2020 tax forms.

The State Department designated China News Service as a foreign mission in 2020, meaning that it was found to be effectively controlled by the Chinese government.

‘China’s Ambitious Climate Vision’

Among other things, EFC says its goals are to improve China’s transportation system, to help the communist country achieve clean economic growth and to promote “China’s ambitious climate vision.” EFC aimed to assist China in becoming “the world leader in clean energy production, consumption, and investment, by 2030,” according to an archived version of the organization’s webpage

“Communist China is our enemy, and their ‘green energy’ policies are based on slave and child labor, government subsidies and trade abuses,” Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott told the DCNF.

EFC has also funneled large sums of money into influential, left-of-center environmental groups in the U.S.

Domestic climate groups, like the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), received millions from EFC between 2020 and 2022.

RMI, a nonprofit dedicated to “working to accelerate the clean energy transition,” was behind a study cited by Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr.’s decision to consider a ban on gas stoves, which attracted significant controversy.

The Colorado-based organization also partnered with the Chinese government to produce a report advising a transition away from oil and gas. EFC was also involved in producing that report.

White House officials have met privately with leaders of RMI, Fox News Digital reported.

EFC gave about $1.8 million to RMI between 2020 and 2022, tax forms show.

NRDC, meanwhile, received about $700,000 from EFC between 2020 and 2022, according to tax forms.

NRDC describes itself as the “first national environmental advocacy group to focus on legal action.” NRDC has opposed expanded oil drilling in the United States, power plants that run on coal, mining projects and the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

NRDC also has close ties to the Biden administration.

Gina McCarthy, NRDC’s former president, served as the White House’s national climate advisor from 2021 to 2022, Fox reported. The organization’s current president, Manish Bapna, has attended at least two White House meetings and the NRDC regularly communicates with Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry’s office, Fox reported.

“There are those, foremost among them, John Kerry, but there are many others who believe the existential challenge of our time … is climate change, and therefore we must have a more cooperative relationship with China,” House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mike Gallagher told the DCNF.

“That’s nonsense. We need to get realistic before it’s too late. Thinking that Xi Jinping cares about the documents that are signed at [the United Nations Climate Change Conference] is naïve, utopian nonsense. It reflects a profound misunderstanding of how the geopolitical world works.”

NRDC and RMI both have offices in China.

EFC has provided funding to RMI and NRDC’s Chinese programs, though grants to those organizations on EFC’s most recent publicly-available tax forms are earmarked for “education and analysis” operations with no mention of China.

RMI employs a number of former Chinese government officials through its China program. Ting Li, Minhui Gao, Kaidi Guo, Qiyu Liu and Qian Sun are among the RMI staffers who formerly held posts in the Chinese government.

EFC did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHORS

ROBERT SCHMAD AND PHILIP LENCZYCKI

Contributors.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden Admin Doubles Down On Climate Cooperation With China As Xi’s Economy Goes On Coal Binge

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Far-left Arabella Advisors funnels donor cash to groups organizing pro-Hamas protests across America

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In regard to the trans madness and LGBTQ propaganda we are inundated with everywhere, the Leftist/Islamic alliance is showing signs of strain. But when it comes to killing Jews, the two allies are closer than ever, like peas in a pod.

Dem Dark Money ‘Arabella’ Group Has Funneled $10M To Pro-Hamas Protesters

by William Upton, National Pulse, November 1, 2023:

Arabella Advisors, a progressive Washington, D.C.-based dark money operation, is using numerous non-profit organizations it controls to funnel left-wing donor cash to groups organizing pro-Hamas protests across America. The firm is at the center of a vast network of dark money groups which has now funneled over $10 million to anti-Israel causes over the past five years.

The funds have moved through Arabella-controlled non-profits like the New Venture Fund, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, Hopewell Fund, and the North Fund. Some of the groups on the final receiving end have outwardly called for the destruction of the State of Israel and the genocide of the Jewish population living there. Reports suggest some of the Palestinian organizations funded by the same network may even have direct links to terrorist groups like Hamas.

Over $5 million in donations were directed to non-profit associated with hardline anti-Semite Linda Sarsour, who was even made to step down as a leader of the radical ‘Women’s March’ protest in 2019 over her open hostility to Jews and affiliation with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Even the far-left Anti-Defamation League has accused Sarsour of “fomenting” anti-Semitism….

Read full article.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

A Dem-Linked Dark Money Network Is Quietly Funding The ‘Misinformation’ Research Industry

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  • Arabella Advisors, a consultant firm with ties to the Democratic Party, manages funds that are supporting academic and independent research into online “misinformation,” predominantly targeting conservatives’ online presence.
  • Researchers funded by the Arabella network recommended strategies such as censorship as ways to mitigate the spread of “misinformation” and “disinformation.” 
  • “Groups like the Arabella network weaponize charitable laws and tax exemption to aid Democratic electoral victories, bypassing the IRS prohibition on electioneering,” Hayden Ludwig, senior investigative researcher at Capital Research Center (CRC), a conservative watchdog group researching liberal financial influence, told the DCNF.

Several funds managed by Arabella Advisors, a Democrat-linked consultant firm, are quietly bankrolling research by universities and non-profits into how online “misinformation” and “disinformation” spreads, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of the networks’ grants.

Arabella Advisors, run by former Bill Clinton official Eric Kessler, manages certain administrative, legal and philanthropic functions of several non-profits including the Sixteen Thirty Fund, Hopewell Fund, North Fund and New Venture Fund, which donate to a variety of left-leaning groups, causes and Democratic candidates, according to tax filings and statements on the funds’ and Arabella’s websites. Several funds within the network are also sponsoring research into the effects of, and how best to mitigate, misinformation and disinformation, according to a DCNF review of public grants.

Many of the Arabella-funded research projects cite conservatives predominantly as purveyors of misinformation, with several projects recommending solutions to mitigate the spread of misinformation, including censorship.

The New Venture Fund sponsored a project in March called “The True Costs of Misinformation” at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, led by the center’s research director Joan Donovan, that sought to study the impacts of online misinformation, particularly on “vulnerable communities,” according to the project’s description. The project included a workshop featuring several panels on different topics related to the alleged impacts of misinformation.

A presentation titled “What Is Driving Conservativism’s Post-Democratic Turn in America?” by Steven Feldstein at the Carnegie Council ostensibly examined the impact of misinformation on the perceived “anti-democratic” attitudes espoused by conservatives in the U.S., according to the workshop agenda.

“How did American conservatives reach a point where their main political messages are either blatantly anti-democratic or outright falsehoods?” the presentation’s description read, alleging that “political partisanship” in the U.S. was “largely stoked by conservative propaganda and disinformation.” 

One panel entirely focused on strategies for “misinformation mitigation,” with presentations from researchers at the University of Washington and Google, among other places, according to the workshop agenda. The strategies included legislative action to alter election laws to curb election misinformation, and “psychological inoculation” against dis- and misinformation.

Another presentation sought to figure out ways to demonetize sites promoting “divisive disinformation on COVID” at “the industry or policy level,” according to the workshop agenda.

The Shorenstein Center did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

In addition, The New Venture Fund provided a grant for a 2021 research project, performed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Texas at Austin and the University College London, that explored methods for mitigating misinformation by facilitating “social groups” to “[exchange] judgments regarding the probability that news is true,” according to the project’s acknowledgements. The project cited the “spread of misinformation” as “one of the leading threats to democracy, public health, and the global economy.”

Arabella Advisors and the New Venture Fund did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

The Hopewell Fund, another Arabella-managed philanthropic organization, sponsored a research project, the results of which were published in The Atlantic, that examined how misinformation spreads on Facebook, focusing on “superusers.” The paper cited examples of spreaders of misinformation, including “Calvin,” who uses “’gay’ as a slur and declares that black neighborhoods are always ‘SHITHOLES,’” and “Michelle,” a woman who criticizes the “plandemic.”

The article’s authors appeared to suggest censorship as the most effective means of curbing misinformation.

“Allowing a small set of people who behave horribly to dominate the platform is Facebook’s choice, not an inevitability,” the article read. “If each of Facebook’s 15,000 U.S. moderators aggressively reviewed several dozen of the most active users and permanently removed those guilty of repeated violations, abuse on Facebook would drop drastically within days.”

The Hopewell Fund told the DCNF that the project was part of a “program focused on supporting researchers studying misinformation and accountability on the social web.”

While the Sixteen Thirty Fund explicitly donates to Democratic political action committees (PACs) and candidates, according to an OpenSecrets review of its campaign spending, the Arabella network’s other funds bankroll left-leaning and Democrat-affiliated groups that engage in electoral activism and issue-based advocacy, according to The New York Times

“Groups like the Arabella network weaponize charitable laws and tax exemption to aid Democratic electoral victories, bypassing the IRS prohibition on electioneering,” Hayden Ludwig, senior investigative researcher at Capital Research Center (CRC), a conservative watchdog group researching liberal financial influence, told the DCNF.

The Hopewell Fund sponsored both the Voter Participation Center and the Center for Voter Information, the NYT reported, which spent almost $150 million together preceding the 2020 election in “get-out-the-vote” efforts targeting demographics that lean Democratic; the fund also bankrolled a Democrat-aligned legal group, Democracy Docket Legal Fund, led by Democratic Party election lawyer Marc Elias.

The New Venture Fund also set up the Trusted Elections Fund, according to a memo obtained by CRC, which courted donors to pour money into election security efforts ahead of the 2020 election. The fund distributed grants that were partly intended to “prepare journalists and civil society organizations with tools to respond to mis/disinformation and cybersecurity issues.”

“Nonprofits pour hundreds of millions of dollars into voter registration and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) campaigns which microtarget likely Democratic voters,” Ludwig said. “The Arabella nonprofits are a massive funnel to shift those millions from foundations and mega-donors to these professional activists.”

In addition to financial support for academic research, the Arabella network supports several non-profit organizations that conduct research into misinformation and disinformation.

For instance, the New Venture Fund is the architect of the Media Democracy Fund, a grantmaking non-profit that supports a variety of left-wing groups active in the spheres of media and communications, according to the Media Democracy Fund’s website. The Media Democracy fund has several wealthy partners, such as George Soros’ Open Society Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

The Media Democracy Fund partially sponsored the Disinfo Defense League, which describes itself as “a distributed national network of organizers, researchers and disinformation experts disrupting online racialized disinformation infrastructure and campaigns that deliberately target Black, Latinx, Asian American/Pacific Islander and other communities of color,” according to the group’s website. Members of the league include numerous left-wing and progressive activist organizations, such as Free Press, the Women’ March and Ultraviolet.

Ahead of the 2020 election, the group held numerous webinars, trainings and other educational events with misinformation researchers, in partnership with Joan Donovan of the Shorenstein Center, to train activists to combat perceived misinformation, Protocol reported.

The New Venture Fund has also sponsored a fellowship at the Algorithmic Integrity Institute, which was described as “a pilot program to train ethnic media reporters to identify, surface, and analyze instances” of misinformation and other unsavory content, according to the fellowship’s description.

In addition, the fund donated roughly $25 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life, according to tax filings, an organization which also received hundreds of millions in “zuckbucks” from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to administer elections during 2020. The organization trained election workers to spot perceived election misinformation and cited former President Donald Trump as a chief purveyor of election falsehoods, according to a July 2020 manual.

The North Fund, another Arabella affiliate, is behind a group called Accountable Tech that, among pro-antitrust activism and support for privacy regulations for tech companies, researches and advocates against online misinformation; Accountable Tech is a registered trade name of the North Fund, according to the North Fund’s business filings. The group organized a pressure campaign targeting advertisers to boycott Twitter amid Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform, citing the threat of misinformation, among other concerns. The North Fund declined to comment to The Washington Free Beacon, who also reported on this link, but said that it “follows all disclosure requirements related to the disclosure of individual donors and grantees.”

The North Fund did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

AILAN EVANS

Associate Editor. Follow Ailan on Twitter @AilanHEvans

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