Part of our developing series on Arabella Advisors
The country’s largest and perhaps most influential “dark money” network pulled in nearly $1.6 billion in 2021, according to new IRS filings, a mere $148 million drop from the record $1.7 billion in revenues it posted in 2020.
At the top of this nonprofit network is, Arabella Advisors, a for-profit consultancy that advises foundations and donors on grantmaking to left-of-center political causes. The Capital Research Center was the first to expose Arabella’s massive nonprofit apparatus in early 2019, which has since become the poster child for anonymous spending in America’s top political fights. Since then we’ve identified hundreds of Arabella-run “pop-up” groups, as well as attack campaigns launched from the company’s offices under the aegis of its various nonprofits.
Possibly the network’s financial decline from 2020 may suggest that the Arabella network has peaked, considering its steady growth year-after-year starting in 2006. On the other hand, the small decline in revenues may just reflect left-wing donors’ slightly diminished political enthusiasm in an off-year, versus a presidential year, especially after the network’s 2020 revenues grew by 136 percent—over $1 billion—over the previous year. We won’t know until the network releases its 2022 disclosures next year, which will shed some light on its political activities during the recent midterm elections.
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