George Soros’ foundations pledge $300M for US democracy amid attacks on nonprofits

NEW YORK (AP) — George Soros ’ Open Society Foundations pledged $300 million Wednesday toward initiatives it says will defend democratic rights and advance economic security in the U.S. over the next five years.

The new strategy comes even as President Donald Trump’s administration has singled out the Soros family, accusing them of influence nonprofits and charitable funders through executive orders, by withholding funding or by threatening investigations.

“We are continuing our work unabated. We will not be intimidated into silence,” said Laleh Ispahani, managing director for the U.S. at Open Society Foundations, when asked about the administration’s attacks on the Soros family.

The president’s allies in Congress have also asked the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice to investigate nonprofits they accuse of supporting domestic terrorism, illegal immigration or climate programs that they disagree with. In December, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered law enforcement to investigate nonprofits that support antifa, an umbrella term for far-left-leaning groups that Trump has designated a domestic terrorist organization.

When asked if the Justice Department was looking into Open Society, a DOJ spokesperson said the department does not comment on investigations.

In the past year, Ispahani said OSF has provided grants to organizations working to defend the rule of law and to push back on policies that seek to deter parts of the U.S. population from participating in public life. The foundations’ new strategy aims to improve people’s economic well-being and deepen civil rights protections, which she said are often handled separately rather than seen as two sides of the same struggle.

OSF will look for state-level policies that strengthen protections for vulnerable groups, which could be replicated in other states, Ispahani said, and for policies that help create a fair economy for the working class.

“You can’t address the racial wealth gap without tackling core, working class economic issues like living wages, affordable child care and housing,” she said.

OSF has already committed $20 million of the $300 million to be used this year for organizations working to defend rights and the rule of law through strategic litigation, nonprofit sector defense, and efforts to track government corruption in the U.S.

The new democracy strategy is the first new program that works solely in the U.S. that OSF has approved under the leadership of Alex Soros, one of George Soros’ sons, who has overseen a yearslong restructuring of the foundations and major layoffs.

“Guaranteed rights and freedoms are just as critical as broad economic prosperity and are the strongest defense we have against a closed society,” Alex Soros, chair of the Open Society Foundations, said in a statement. “Our new investments will tackle these twin challenges.”

OSF’s previous U.S. democracy strategy had poured at least $220 million into building a multiracial, multifaith, pro-democracy alliance, which had included five-year grants to community-based groups led by people of color and women.

Giving to democracy from large foundations has increased

For many years, few large philanthropic foundations saw a role for themselves in supporting democracy in the U.S.

Charitable foundations are restricted from directly supporting candidates or political parties, but they can fund a wide range of nonpartisan activities like voter registration, civic education, journalism, policy development or government accountability.

Near the end of President Barack Obama’s second term and through Trump’s first term, large philanthropic foundations started allocating more resources toward democracy-related activities, according to research from Kristin Anne Goss, a professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.

Drawing from a data set of grants from the largest 1,000 philanthropic foundations, Goss also found that among the very largest foundations, giving to democracy as a percentage of their overall giving increased significantly between 2013 and 2020. She said these trends suggest that for some funders focused on traditional issues like health and education, democracy became a higher priority.

David Wolcheck, the lead data analyst for research at the nonprofit Candid, which tracks charitable grantmaking, drew on a different data set but found that foundation support for democracy-related activities tripled between 2016 and 2020. It then dropped by a third the following year. He said further research was needed to determine exactly why.

However, many of these foundations themselves say in their grantmaking strategies that they seek to counter authoritarianism and to support progress toward social equity. These funds certainly also include support for policies and organizations that have different values and visions for the future of the U.S., Goss said.

But she added, “If you’re looking at these numbers and these trends, the vast, vast, vast majority of it is going toward a vision of society that is inclusive,” and supports the rule of law and civil liberties.

Funders take a range of approaches to supporting democracy

Other major foundations have also announced large commitments related to democracy in the past year, but comprehensive data about grantmaking in this area won’t be available publicly for several years.

The Ford Foundation is the largest funder of democracy in the U.S. among private and community foundations, according to Wolcheck’s research. Under the leadership of its new president, Heather Gerken, Ford Foundation said in a statement that it is “providing substantial funding to organizations across the political spectrum doing nonpartisan work to safeguard our democracy and protect the rule of law.”

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation pledged $100 million between last year and this year to protect voting rights, civil rights and improve the capacity of democracy to deliver for people. In March, the Minnesota-based McKnight Foundation approved spending an additional $20 million from its endowment in 2026, some of which will go toward efforts to increase civic engagement and participation among people with different views.

Another campaign led by the nonprofit Democracy Fund urges philanthropic funders to support free and fair elections and to allocate funding to nonprofits who do that by the end of April. This is the second round of the “ All by April ” campaign, which responds to requests from nonprofits that participate in nonpartisan voter registration and turnout to fund those activities well in advance of Election Day. The campaign also recommends making grants to protect nonprofits and their leaders from government intimidation and other extraordinary threats.

The diversity of these commitments reflects the dual call for philanthropic funders to respond quickly and decisively to anti-democratic policies and to provide long-term support for nonprofits that seek to broaden political participation and improve governance.

The range of approaches may also point to the difficulty of knowing what will work to protect and strengthen democracy through nonpartisan funding.

“A lot of the things that they’re working on, especially around democracy, it’s really hard to measure impact,” Goss said of foundations. “Because they’re trying to intervene in things that are deep and long standing and often in the political sphere or having roots in the global economy and other huge, huge structures.”

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