Eric Kessler is the founder of Arabella Advisors, a Washington, D.C.-based philanthropic consultant group, and previously served as the group’s principal and senior managing director. Arabella Advisors also manages a number of center-left funding and fiscal sponsorship organizations, including 501(c)(4) Sixteen Thirty Fund, 501(c)(3) New Venture Fund, 501(c)(3) Hopewell Fund, and 501(c)(3) Windward Fund. ⁶ Eric Kessler is a member of the foundation’s board of directors (as of 2019), alongside Barbara W. Kessler and Dennis L. Kessler, his parents. Dennis “Denny” Kessler is president and founder of Midwest Family Business Advisors, which advises family business owners on conflict resolution, strategic planning, and related small business services. ⁸

In the 1990s, Kessler joined the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, a nonprofit that advances a left-leaning vision of democracy in developing countries. As of 2020, he is also a board member for the institute. ¹¹

Controversies

Coordinating with White House on Agricultural Policy

In 2023, right-of-center watchdog group Americans for Public Trust (APT) obtained U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) emails which it claimed showed Kessler copied on several email chains partially redacted discussing agriculture and food manufacture policy with others that included himself, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, USDA Advisor Marty Matlock, former senior Vilsack advisor Matthew McKenna, and other USDA officials. One such email chain was in June 2019, when Kessler was part of a conversation with Vilsack as well as Matlock and McKenna discussing a “food processing initiative” while Vislack noted that, “the three were helping to “direct and lead.” 0){ let parent=divs[divs.length-1].parentNode; let footer=divs[divs.length-1]; delete divs[divs.length-1]; for (let i=2; i