Who's Funding the Fight Against Your Map?
If you’ve heard about the Deschutes Defend Our Democracy Coalition — the group trying to defeat the county’s proposed five-district commissioner map — you might think it’s just a handful of concerned neighbors. The coalition’s website lists local school board members, parks district directors, and a city councilor alongside groups with friendly-sounding names like the League of Women Voters and Common Cause Oregon.
But when you follow the money behind these organizations, you find something very different from a grassroots neighborhood effort. You find some of the biggest and most controversial political money machines in America.
The Billion-Dollar Dark Money Pipeline
Several of the coalition’s member organizations receive funding from a network called the Arabella Advisors system — recently rebranded as “Sunflower Services” after years of negative attention. Arabella managed a web of nonprofit funds, including the Sixteen Thirty Fund and the North Fund, that raised a combined $1.35 billion from anonymous donors in a single year (2022). (Washington Free Beacon) These funds do not have to tell the public who their donors are. That is why critics on both the left and the right call this “dark money.”
Common Cause Oregon, one of the coalition’s most prominent members, has received over $1.4 million from the Sixteen Thirty Fund and $625,000 from the North Fund between 2018 and 2023 — documented in the organizations’ IRS Form 990 filings. (InfluenceWatch) The Sixteen Thirty Fund spent $410 million in 2020 working to defeat Donald Trump and elect Democrats. (OpenSecrets) It has poured $130 million into state ballot campaigns across 26 states, pushing progressive causes from coast to coast. (Americans for Public Trust)
Where does the Sixteen Thirty Fund get its money? One of its biggest known donors is Hansjörg Wyss, a Swiss billionaire who has sent at least $243 million to the fund — a figure documented in congressional testimony by the watchdog group Americans for Public Trust and sourced from IRS filings and Bloomberg reporting. (Congressional testimony, May 2024; Americans for Public Trust) Wyss is not an American citizen. Federal law bans foreign nationals from donating to candidates or political campaigns, but a loophole allows them to give to nonprofit groups like the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which then spend the money on political causes. In November 2025, the Nebraska Attorney General sued Wyss and six affiliated groups for allegedly funneling nearly $10 million in illegal foreign money into that state’s ballot initiatives. (Nebraska Attorney General; Nebraska Examiner; Courthouse News) The U.S. House Oversight Committee has also launched investigations into the Sixteen Thirty Fund’s activities. (House Oversight Committee)
George Soros and the Indivisible Network
Two more coalition members — Indivisible Redmond and Indivisible Sisters — are local chapters of a national organization called the Indivisible Project. Indivisible was created in 2016 specifically to resist the Trump administration and has never pretended to be nonpartisan. (Wikipedia)
The national Indivisible Project has received over $8 million from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, including a $3 million grant in 2023 alone. (InfluenceWatch; Open Society Foundations) It has also received more than $3 million from the Tides Foundation, another major progressive funding hub. (InfluenceWatch) Indivisible’s national allies include the Democratic Socialists of America, MoveOn.org, and Planned Parenthood. (InfluenceWatch) In 2025, Indivisible chapters organized anti-Tesla protests across the country where demonstrators held signs reading “Burn a Tesla: Save Democracy.” (Daily Signal)
Now, the local Indivisible chapters in Redmond and Sisters will tell you they don’t receive money directly from Soros. That may be true. But they operate under the Indivisible brand, use its organizing tools, and can apply for grants from the national organization — an organization that is heavily funded by Soros and Tides Foundation money. Local chapters have stated that their events are funded by local donations. (Traverse City Ticker)
The Oregon League of Conservation Voters Connection
The Oregon League of Conservation Voters (OLCV), another coalition signatory, is affiliated with the national League of Conservation Voters. Congressional testimony from the nonprofit watchdog Americans for Public Trust revealed that the national LCV network has received over $20 million from Wyss-linked entities. (Congressional testimony, May 2024) The national LCV’s super PAC spent $120 million in the 2024 election cycle supporting Democratic candidates. (FactCheck.org)
The Democracy Alliance: Where It All Connects
Many of these funding streams trace back to one place: the Democracy Alliance, a secretive club of progressive mega-donors co-founded by George Soros. Members must contribute at least $200,000 per year to groups the Alliance recommends. Since 2005, this network has channeled more than $2 billion into liberal organizations and campaigns. (Wikipedia; Inside Philanthropy) The Democracy Alliance has recommended that its wealthy members give money to both the Sixteen Thirty Fund and the League of Conservation Voters — two of the funding sources behind groups in this Deschutes County coalition. (Ballotpedia)
What This Means for You
None of this means the coalition’s arguments about the redistricting map are automatically wrong. Voters should evaluate the map on its merits. But you deserve to know who is behind the campaign asking you to vote against it.
When billions of dollars flow through networks designed to hide where the money comes from — networks funded by foreign billionaires and partisan mega-donors — and that money supports organizations now telling Deschutes County voters what to think about local governance, that is something every independent voter should understand before casting a ballot.
The question isn’t whether these are nice people with real concerns. The question is: whose playbook are they running?