21 When the organization was created, “Soros said that he had no interest in creating an endowed foundation that would exist in perpetuity.” 22 However in 2005 he “changed his mind,” announcing that the foundation would in fact “go on in perpetuity,” continuing to pursue Soros’ agenda well into the future. 20Īs of 2015, the Open Society Foundations was labeled as one of the world’s largest philanthropic organizations, with branches in 37 countries. Open Society Foundations became a formal entity in 1993 as a “progressive network” that seeks to advocate Soros’ vision of society, 18 which he describes as a “comprehensive, liberal democracy.” 19 Open Society Foundations launched programs in the United States beginning in 1996. 16ĭuring the 1980s, Soros’ Open Society Fund operated as a number of separately organized foundations eventually extending across 25 different countries in Africa, Europe, and Asia. 15 It was to promote these principles that in 1979 Soros created the foundation known as the Open Society Fund. 14 Further, Soros’ contends “there is something wrong with making the survival of the fittest,” instead he calls for “cooperation” alongside competition. ![]() 13Ĭonsequently, Soros believes “that laissez-faire capitalism has effectively banished income or wealth redistribution” and that there needs to be a mechanism for wealth redistribution to prevent intolerable inequality. In his early life Soros was deeply influenced by philosopher Karl Popper’s concept of the “open society.” 12 Based on Popper’s philosophy, and despite having made his fortune in the financial markets, Soros argues, “the spread of market values into all areas of life is endangering our open and democratic society” and that “the main enemy of the open society,” is no longer communism but rather capitalism. George Soros, a hedge-fund billionaire whose net worth is currently estimated at $26 billion, personally sets the budget of the Open Society Foundations and has contributed nearly $12 billion to a wide array of organizations since the late 1970s. and exporting leftist policies to countries across the world. 7 8 In spite of this, OSF maintains a position as a stalwart financier of left-wing nonprofits, financially supporting a large number of left-wing organizations in the U.S. OSF’s operations are notoriously complex, and in 2016 the foundation was labeled the least transparent “think tank” in the United States reviewed by NGO Monitor, an OSF-funded transparency group. 5 OSF has also been criticized for “compromising” American foreign policy. 4 Some of these prerogatives include enacting liberal comprehensive immigration reform (including a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants), cutting the number of prison inmates by 50 percent, increasing welfare handouts, and raising taxes to redistribute wealth. Programs agenda prioritizes a number of liberal issue prerogatives and funds left-wing organizations to carry out these policies. 3 Confidential documents ( available here) indicate that the OSF’s U.S. Programs have given hundreds of millions to left-wing political organizations, including multi-million dollar gifts to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Planned Parenthood, the Robin Hood Foundation, the Tides Foundation, the Brennan Center for Justice, and Alliance for Citizenship, among numerous others. In 2018, OSF reported revenues of $376 million, expenditures of $215 million (including grants of $20.3 million), and assets of $3.7 billion. Built on Soros’ anti-capitalist, redistributionist political philosophy, the organization gives away nearly a billion dollars per year to left-wing organizations around the world to advance his vision of an “open society.” 1 Among those groups is the Foundation to Promote Open Society (FPOS), another foundation created after OSF which has since become the primary grantmaker in the Soros network. ![]() ![]() OSF was founded in 1993 as the Open Society Institute (OSI), which remains the foundation’s formal name OSF has since become the main hub of a Soros-funded network of more than 20 national and regional foundations, making it one of the largest political philanthropies in the world. ![]() The Open Society Foundations (OSF formally Open Society Institute) is a private grantmaking foundation created and funded by billionaire financier and liberal philanthropist George Soros. Also see the similarly named Foundation to Promote Open Society (Nonprofit)
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