Of the $300 million the Open Society Foundations pledged on Wednesday, $20 million is already spoken for this year. It will go to groups doing strategic litigation, defending the nonprofit sector and tracking government corruption in the United States. The rest is spread over five years.
George Soros’s foundation says the whole package is meant to defend democratic rights and advance economic security. The foundation first announced the initiative from New York, describing it as a response to economic insecurity, declining trust in institutions and attacks on basic rights ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary.
Binaifer Nowrojee, the foundation’s president, said the plan “builds on a long American tradition that links liberty to livelihood.” She added: “Today, that promise remains unfulfilled.”
What the money is for
Grants will reach organizations at national, state and local levels, under two headings. One covers civil liberties and the rule of law, including legal challenges to government overreach and work to hold officials accountable. The other joins civil rights to jobs that pay a living wage, affordable child care and elder care, and protection against discrimination by algorithm. It also takes aim at structural barriers to political participation.
Laleh Ispahani, the foundation’s U.S. managing director, called it “both a moral and material response” to a time when rights are being rolled back. She said the foundation wants to reframe individual rights and core economic needs together, the way Martin Luther King Jr. and Franklin Roosevelt did.
This is the first new U.S.-only program approved since Alex Soros, one of George Soros’s sons, took over as chair and oversaw a restructuring and major layoffs. The older U.S. democracy strategy spent at least $220 million on a multiracial, multifaith, pro-democracy alliance.
A political backdrop
The announcement came while the Trump administration was publicly accusing the Soros family of supporting violence and division. According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, those accusations fit a broader push since 2025 to pressure nonprofits and their funders through executive orders, frozen funding and threatened investigations. Asked if the Justice Department was examining Open Society, a spokesperson said the department does not comment on investigations.
Ispahani’s answer to the pressure was short. “We will not be intimidated into silence.”
Other funders
Others have moved too. MacArthur put $100 million toward voting rights and civil rights over last year and this one. The McKnight Foundation in Minnesota approved $20 million more from its endowment for 2026. Ford, which David Wolcheck of the research group Candid ranks as the largest U.S. democracy funder among private and community foundations, says it backs nonpartisan work across the political spectrum.
Duke researcher Kristin Anne Goss warned that results are hard to gauge. Foundations, she said, are trying to change things that are “deep and long standing.”
Sources
- $300 Million to Advance Economic Security and Defend Freedoms in U.S.
- Soros Foundations Pledge $300M for U.S. Democracy Amid Attacks on Nonprofits
