How we fund
Every year the Open Society Foundations give grants to groups and individuals that work on the issues we care about: promoting democratic practice, advancing rights and human dignity, and working for equitable governance.
Building long-term relationships of trust with the entities we support, and understanding their health, effectiveness, strengths, and the challenges they face, is an integral part of the Open Society Foundations’ organization-centered approach to grant making. The vast majority of our grants are awarded to organizations that we approach directly. The kind of grants any Open Society program makes depend on its strategy and its vision of how to use its budget most effectively. Search our database of awarded grants.
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Organizations
Open Society awards grants to organizations, which can include movements, coalitions, networks, collectives, and even informal groups. Guided mostly by our program staff, we support a wide range of activities—everything from discrete project grants to general operating support that cover the day-to-day costs of operations. In most cases, we will not provide more than one-third of any organization’s budget.
View grants and fellowships
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Fellowships
Open Society offers fellowships, reflecting the variety of our work—from human rights and social justice to climate change and inequality.
View fellowships
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Social Impact Investing
We make private sector investments through our social impact investment arm, the Soros Economic Development Fund, to yield social impact.
Learn more about our strategic investments
Our global grants seek to address intractable problems, often rooted in deep social and economic inequalities. Our funding, while considerable, is dwarfed by global financial flows of international aid and investment that may reinforce inequalities. We know that real change comes slowly, and strive to recognize both successes and failures.
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A Nyeri Hospice palliative care nurse, who also provide legal aid to her patients and their families, greets two young women at the home of their sick grandmother. © Sven Torfinn/Panos for the Open Society Foundations -
A group of Soros Arts Fellowship recipients pose with Open Society staff during an orientation and training session in Lisbon, Portugal, on March 28, 2018. © Agata Xavier for the Open Society Foundations -
Two paralegals from the Nubian Rights Forum return to their office after escorting clients to a registration center in Nairobi, Kenya. © Lianne Milton/Panos for the Open Society Foundations -
Attendees at the Fifth Mayoral Forum on Human Mobility, in Marrakech, Morocco, on December 8, 2018. © Maria Balkanlieva/Majority World for the Open Society Foundations -
A participant in the Open Society Institute's Roma Scholars Program speaks with members of the Roma community in Vanatori, Romania, on September 13, 2008. Pamela Chen/Open Society Foundations -
Workers in the kitchen of a café staffed entirely by people with disabilities in Almaty, Kazakhstan. © Vladamir Tretyakov -
Outreach workers with Attitude, an Open Society Foundations grantee focused on comprehensive care for drug users and their families, greet a man in Recife, Brazil. © Lianne Milton/Panos for the Open Society Foundations -
Patrick Gaspard speaks with Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, Frank Giustra, and Keisha Lance Bottoms onstage during the 2018 Concordia Annual Summit in New York City. © Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Summit -
Representatives from nonprofit groups visit an after-school program in a community in Puerto Rico that is resisting relocation after several hurricanes caused severe damaged in the area. © Erika P. Rodriguez for the Open Society Foundations
More than 20,000 people around the world have benefited directly from attending universities and colleges supported by scholarships from the Open Society Foundations. In the 1990s, our giving directly helped citizens in the former countries of Central and Eastern Europe during the difficult transition from Communism. Today, our grants help sustain a vast array of human rights and civil society groups around the world.