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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

What We Value

A commitment to inclusivity, equity, and diversity is a core value at the Open Society Foundations. It informs who we are in fundamental ways, and guides us in our:

  • grant making and advocacy;
  • hiring and promotions; and
  • the way we interact with each other every day.


What Makes an Inclusive Workplace

Open Society strives to be a place where people of diverse backgrounds and multiple identities can bring their whole selves to their work, with confidence they will be treated with respect and valued for who they are.

Fundamentally, we want everyone who works at, or with, the Open Society Foundations to be confident and comfortable in thoughtfully voicing their opinions and concerns without fear of humiliation, persecution, or retaliation, regardless of position, place, or background.

Why This Is Important

We believe inclusion, equity, and diversity are basic building blocks of open societies. People build stronger bonds with each other when they treat each other inclusively—and respect a diversity of opinions and backgrounds.

This is also true in the workplace. We believe a diverse workplace is a strong, resilient workplace. In the end, our focus on diversity, equity, and inclusivity makes Open Society a better place to work, even as it puts us in a stronger position to achieve our goals.

How We Measure Our Efforts

Just as we work hard to evaluate—and improve upon—our efforts to pursue social justice and inclusion in the field, we also work to follow through on our commitment to diversity in the workplace.

We are gathering data and regularly reporting on the composition of our staff by race and gender.

We are presenting some of our findings below because we believe sharing this information helps hold ourselves accountable as we strive to live up to our ideals.

Data as of December 2022

The data presented here is a sample based on information collected by People and Culture through voluntary self-identification by staff as part of the onboarding process. Open Society employees have the option to self-identify as a woman, man, non-binary, or agender/non-gender. A number of employees, across all levels, declined to self-identify by race.

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