Arabella Advisors, the shadowy for-profit consulting firm that managed a multibillion-dollar network of liberal dark money groups, is now Sunflower Services. The company announced Monday it has rebranded and sold off its fiscal sponsorship business to a new firm amid a series of high-profile investigations into its finances and billionaire Bill Gates’s decision to end a longstanding partnership with the organization.
Now, a public benefit corporation called Sunflower Services will manage fiscal sponsorships for the dark money network. It’s a new name, but the same players are involved. Allan Williams, who served as senior vice president for partner solutions at Arabella, will serve as CEO of the new entity. New Venture Fund, Windward Fund, and Hopewell Fund are the “founding owners” of Sunflower Services, the new firm said in a press release.
It’s unclear if the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the primary political arm of the Arabella network that raised $275 million in 2024, will work with Sunflower Services. The Sixteen Thirty Fund did not return a request for comment.
Arabella CEO Himesh Bhise posted on LinkedIn that the firm sold only its fiscal sponsorship business to Sunflower Services. Arabella also provided more traditional and uncontroversial nonprofit HR and accounting services, and will continue to do so under its new name, Vital Impact. Bhise will serve as Vital Impact’s CEO.
The move from Arabella indicates the firm felt the need to quarantine its fiscal sponsorship business amid the threats of investigations from President Donald Trump, who issued a memorandum in September directing several federal agencies to investigate nonprofit organizations allegedly involved in political violence and the “organized structures, networks, entities, organizations” and funding sources behind them.
Trump’s memo had a “chilling effect” on major liberal foundations across the country, the Free Press reported.
Arabella also received scrutiny from the left. In 2023, D.C. attorney general Brian Schwalb (D.) launched an investigation and issued subpoenas to Arabella Advisors following a series of Washington Free Beacon reports on the firm’s practices. Schwalb closed his investigation in 2024, saying it found no evidence of a legal violation.
Still, the scrutiny from both sides of the political aisle appears to have damaged its relationships with some of its major donors. In June, the Gates Foundation, the influential philanthropy of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, said it would cease using Arabella Advisors as a middleman to handle many of its grants. The foundation called it a “business decision that reflects our regular strategic assessments of partnerships and operating models.”
The Gates move, which the New York Times called a “significant blow” to Arabella’s operations, spooked other nonprofits that work with Arabella over concerns of friction with the Gates Foundation, which had donated $450 million to Arabella’s dark money network. Other Arabella clients have pulled back from a partnership with the organization out of fear that the Trump administration will go after them for working closely with the progressive group, the Times reported.
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. Those groups, which raised nearly $1.2 billion in 2024, will still be in the business of serving as fiscal sponsors for hundreds of nebulous pop-up groups that exist for a short period of time, often rallying support for or in opposition to a particular political objective without the sort of public disclosure typically required of nonprofit organizations. Arabella used to manage those fiscal sponsorships in return for a fee from its dark money groups, an arrangement that brought considerable scrutiny from conservatives and threats of investigations from the Trump administration, leading Gates and other major donors to cut ties with the firm.
“One possibility is the name is now radioactive and they had always wanted it secret,” said Scott Walter, the president of Capital Research Center, a watchdog group that investigates Arabella Advisors and other liberal special interest groups.
“This reconfiguration lets them say a non-profit of sorts is in charge of everything instead of a for-profit,” added Walter, who noted the significance of the Gates Foundation move. “Gates said no money to Arabella, but Sunflower is not Arabella. Sunflower just sounds much more puppy-ish than the exotic and incomprehensible Arabella.”
It comes amid a broad shakeup at other left-wing philanthropies. Open Philanthropy, a nonprofit funded by early Facebook investor Dustin Moskovitz, announced it will now operate as Coefficient Giving.
Open Society Foundations, the philanthropy of George Soros, laid off 40 percent of its workforce in 2023 amid a broad restructuring. Sierra Club, the prominent environmentalist group, has gone through a series of layoffs and budget shortfalls over the past couple of years as it has expanded its domain from environmental issues to social justice causes like the Black Lives Matter movement.
