U.S. Treasury Announces IRS Will Revise Form 990 to Require Nonprofits to Disclose Government Grants and Fiscal Sponsorships

U.S. Treasury Department announced on April 23 that the IRS plans to revise Form 990 to improve transparency and strengthen oversight specifically targeting reporting on government contracts, government grants, and fiscal sponsorship arrangements. The stated goals of the Form 990 revision are to detect misconduct and hold wrongdoers accountable.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said: “We are ending the days of hiding fraud, abuse, and extremist activity behind complicated nonprofit arrangements. ” The IRS currently has no mechanism on Form 990 to require disclosure of fiscal sponsorship arrangements. Form 990 has no mechanism for disclosing fiscal sponsorship activities.

Fiscal sponsorship is a legitimate practice in which a 501(c)(3) nonprofit extends its tax-exempt status to groups engaged in activities that serve the sponsor’s mission, typically for a fee. @zerohedge reported that Arabella Advisors was founded in 2005 by Eric Kessler, a Clinton administration alumnus. The seven nonprofits in the Arabella Network provided nearly $1 billion in grants in 2023.

4 billion. In the 2022 cycle, Arabella’s fundraising rose to $3 billion. The Arabella-managed nonprofits collectively paid Arabella over $200 million in consulting fees.

Since the Arabella network’s inception, it sponsored at least 340 pop-up groups. The five funds in the Arabella network sent more than $52 million to Arabella Advisors as payment for operational and management services. The flagship funds in the Arabella network are the New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Hopewell Fund, Windward Fund, and North Fund.

U.S. politics and elections. The Arabella Network can be linked directly to $265 million from Wyss’s Berger Action Fund and Wyss Foundations.

U.S. Arabella announced it would be shuttering and replaced by successor organizations including Sunflower Services and Vital Impact. Arabella’s restructuring into Sunflower Services and Vital Impact occurred in late 2025.

The fiscal sponsorship division of Arabella was acquired by Sunflower Services, a newly formed public benefit corporation. Sunflower Services is at least majority-owned by the New Venture Fund, Hopewell Fund, and Windward Fund. 4 million between 1996 and 2010.

In 2010, the Tides Center was actively managing nearly 200 projects. The six Tides nonprofits saw combined total revenues of $785,605,823 in 2024. In 2023, the Tides Foundation gave $286,000 to the Alliance for Global Justice.

USAID awarded more than $800,000 to the New Venture Fund and $27 million to the Tides Center. The US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants reported receiving $284 million of its $289 million in revenue from government grants. The Solidarity Center has received over $86 million from the federal government since 2008, with $61 million of that given under former President Biden.

The Solidarity Center receives 99 percent of its total revenue from American taxpayers. The AFL-CIO gave 86 percent of its 2024 political donations to Democrats. Under a former staffer from the Coalition for Green Capital at the Biden EPA, $5 billion was granted to his former organization out of $27 billion in green funding.

Power Forward Communities received nearly $9 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funds. A group affiliated with Stacey Abrams received $2 billion despite having only $100 in the bank. The Environmental Law Institute received millions of dollars in grants and contracts from the EPA, Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, Agriculture, State, and the National Science Foundation between 2021 and 2024.

7 million in revenue and nearly $770 million in net assets for 2021. A Biden-era Department of Labor approved a $6 million employment training grant for NextGen. The Justice Department indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on federal fraud charges.

The SPLC indictment occurred in the context of scrutiny of the Tides Foundation’s role in funding anti-Israel groups. 6 billion. ” Governing for Impact was started in 2019 and funded entirely with Soros money.

Demand Justice spent millions of dollars on ads attacking Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination. The Tides Center offers comprehensive fiscal sponsorship to projects that do not have their own tax-exempt status.