Filings Show Major Liberal Dark Money Group Funded By Fidelity Charitable, Gates Foundation

Recently filed tax documents show that New Venture Fund, the main arm of the massive Arabella dark money nonprofit network, pulled in over $460,000,000 in 2019 — largely from undisclosed sources.

Further investigation shows that New Venture Fund’s largest donation of $83,125,033 came by way of the nation’s largest “Donor Advised Fund", the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund (FICGF). Fidelity Charitable, as a donor advised fund, acts as a “pass-through” for donors who want to to be able to receive the tax benefits of donating to nonprofits without actually having to ever do so. Since FICGF acts as a nonprofit, donors can write that donation off — the money, however, sits in the account until the donor instructs Fidelity to disperse it to the charity of their choosing. Another aspect — and probably the least talked about — of donor advised funds is the anonymity factor. Donors are under no obligation to disclose their information to anyone outside of FICGF, which is useful for a number of situations for which normal circumstances would call for more disclosure. In short, donor advised funds — especially the size of Fidelity’s (who reported more than $7.3 Billion in 2019 grants) — are beginning to exacerbate an already out of control dark money epidemic.