Open Society Foundations (Open Society Institute)

Also see the similarly named Foundation to Promote Open Society (Nonprofit)

In 2024, OSF reported revenue of $396 million, expenditures of $296 million (with grants of $155 million), and net assets of $4.7 billion. ³

In 2018, OSF reported revenues of $376 million, expenditures of $215 million (including grants of $20.3 million), and assets of $3.7 billion. ⁴

In the United States, 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.  ⁵

OSF’s operations are notoriously complex, and in 2016 the foundation was labeled the least transparent “think tank” in the United States in a review by Transparify, an OSF-funded transparency group. ^{6 7} OSF has continued to support left-of-center organizations within the United States and abroad. ^{8 6}

George Soros

George Soros, a hedge-fund billionaire whose net worth was  estimated to be $26 billion in 2017, personally set the budget of the Open Society Foundations for much of its history. As of 2017, it was estimated he had contributed nearly $12 billion to a wide array of organizations since the late 1970s.  ⁹

In his early life Soros was deeply influenced by philosopher Karl Popper’s concept of the “open society.” ⁶ Based on Popper’s philosophy, and despite having made his fortune in the financial markets, Soros argued in 1997, “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. ¹

Consequently, Soros has stated his belief “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. ¹ Further, Soros’ contended “there is something wrong with making the survival of the fittest” and  instead called for “cooperation” alongside competition. ¹ It was to promote these principles that in 1979 Soros created the foundation known as the Open Society Fund. ¹

During 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.  ¹

History

Open Society Foundations became a formal entity in 1993 as a “progressive network” that sought to advocate Soros’ vision of society,¹⁰ which he described as a “comprehensive, liberal democracy.” ¹¹ Open Society Foundations launched programs in the United States beginning in 1996.  ¹²

As of 2015, the Open Society Foundations was labeled as one of the world’s largest philanthropic organizations, with branches in 37 countries. ⁹ When the organization was created, “Soros said that he had no interest in creating an endowed foundation that would exist in perpetuity.”⁹ 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. ⁹ Philanthropy observers noted that Open Society Foundations could one day “be the largest in the world, rivaling that of the Gates Foundation, which stands at $43 billion.” ⁹

Structure

Open Society Foundations is a “network of more than 20 national and regional foundations around the world.” According to one OSF president, the boards of those semi-independent national foundations and the larger regional foundations “make their own grant decisions and propose their own strategies.”¹³

According to the Open Society Foundations’ 2017 budget, the organization involves itself in the operations of its grantees in two general ways. The organization either makes “a very large, long-term grant to a single organization or initiative” or Open Society Foundations coordinates the separate efforts of many programs and foundations across its network through what is describes as a “shared framework.” ¹⁴ The group’s work is generally categorized into ten policy themes across seven geographic regions. ¹⁴

U.S. Programs

U.S. Programs Budget

In 2017, Open Society Foundations planned to spend $100 million on grants and direct program costs for the United States, the largest budget amount for any single region amounting to 18 percent of the organization’s total grant/program spending. ¹⁴

A leaked 2014 Open Society Foundations U.S. Programs budget indicated that the $125 million budget breaks down into five categories:

• $50.7 million (25 percent of U.S. Programs budget) for Core/New initiatives that included support for grantees, “social justice laboratories, a $25 million reserve fund, and “long-term idea generation” initiatives. ¹⁵
• $14.9 million (14.94 percent) for “Democracy” related initiatives ¹⁵
• $20.28 million (20.28 percent) for “Justice” related initiatives focused mainly on reducing incarceration, challenging punishments, police accountability in New York, and liberalizing drug laws. ¹⁵
• $22.95 million (22.65 percent) for “Equality” related initiatives namely focused on immigration reform, school discipline, “fiscal equity,” and minority programs.  ¹⁵
• $16.13 million (16.1 percent) for operations, admin, and program development.  ¹⁵

U.S. Programs Agenda

An Open Society Foundations 2015-2018 U.S. Programs strategic plan that was taken from the group and leaked indicates that among other things, Open Society Foundations’ U.S. Programs platform calls for:¹⁶

• An economy governed by the “redistribution of resources;”
• A justice system that reduces incarceration, abolishes the death penalty, and promotes “health centered” drug use punishment;
• Enactment of comprehensive immigration reform, that gives “full political, economic, and civic participation” to illegal immigrants;
• A reduction in “the racial wealth gap” through income redistribution;
• and “Inclusive economic development” focused on raising the minimum wage and employment for ex-convict

U.S. Programs Grants (20210 – 2020)

In 2014, then-Open Society Foundations president Chris Stone claimed that OSF, through its grantmaking, “support[s] groups that try to raise the political stakes, putting pressure on politicians” on left-of-center agenda items such as environmental regulations and oversight of police. ¹³ Stone also claimed that OSF donated to organizations that “share a commitment to social change based on common values and principles.”  ¹⁷

In 2013, Mike Ciandella for the conservative news organization CNS News wrote,

“Soros has aided hundreds of left-wing groups in America since 2000 under the auspices of his Open Society Foundations. In just 10 years, he gave more than $550 million to liberal organizations in the United States. This has included money going to fund liberal agenda topics like Earth Day, gun control, government funding of student loans and even the IRS targeting of conservatives.” ¹⁸

An alleged OSF U.S. Programs board meeting agenda claimed that from 2009 to April 2014, OSF’s U.S. Programs distributed $827 million worth of grants to 2,272 grantees. ⁵

* As of April 30, 2014

During this time period, OSF U.S. programs donated $347 million to 25 different left-of-center organizations, including the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, the Tides Foundation, the Brennan Center For Justice, the Drug Policy Alliance, and Robin Hood Foundation.   ⁵

The top 25 major grantees list between 2009 and 2014 were listed as:⁵:

In November 2014, the Open Society Foundation announced that it would give “$50 million to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in support of its nationwide campaign to reduce incarceration.”¹⁹

In 2016, it was reported that Open Society Foundations gave $33 million to the Black Lives Matter movement and groups associated with it. ²⁰

In its proposed 2014 budget for its U.S. Programs, OSF’s 10 “anchor” grantees would receive a combined $8.25 million and 31 “core” grantees received a combined $8.46 million.  ¹⁵

Open Society Foundations’ 2015-2018 U.S. Programs plan listed a number of redistributionist policy goals and sets out the organizations that will function as either “anchor” or “core” grantees for that specific set of goals. ¹⁶ This included the Black Lives Matter-aligned group Color of Change, UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza), and the NAACP. ¹⁶

• Anchor Grantees: American Constitution Society, ACLU, the Advancement Project, Brennan Center for Justice
• Core Grantees: Government Accountability Project, Demos, Lawyers’ Committee on Civil Rights under Law, Project on Government Oversight, Center for Public Integrity, Human Rights First, National Security Archive Fund

Other grantees focused on left-of-center criminal justice reforms: ¹⁶

• Anchor Grantees: ACLU, Drug Policy Alliance, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Brennan Center for Justice, Center for Community Change,
• Core Grantees: Equal Justice Initiative; the Sentencing Project; Southern Center for Human Rights; Juvenile Law Center; Council of State Governments; Campaign for Youth Justice

Some grantees that will help to increase political participation for illegal immigrants through increased access to “financial services,” low-income housing, comprehensive immigration reform, and an easing of school discipline.  ¹⁶

• Anchor Grantees: ACLU, Advancement Project, Brennan Center for Justice, Center for Community Change, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, American Constitution Society, Leadership Conference Education Fund, NAACP
• Core Grantees: Color of Change, National Association of Latino Elected Officials, PICO National Network, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Opportunity Agenda, Center for Social Inclusion, UnidosUS (formerly National Council of La Raza), The Kirwan Institute, Asian Americans Advancing Justice

Grantees will help to enact local- and national-level policies that redistribute wealth through increased economic development, a shifting local tax burdens from blue cities to redder suburbs, and raising taxes.  ¹⁶

• Anchor Grantees: Center for Community Change, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Center for American Progress
• Core Grantees: Center for Working Families, PICO National Network, UnidosUS (formerly National Council of La Raza), Roosevelt Institute, Center for Responsible Lending, Economic Policy Institute, National Employment Law Project

2017 Brooklyn Conference

Open Society Foundations partnered with JPMorgan Chase to sponsor “The Brooklyn Conference,” a lecture series that ran in late October of the 2017 centered around discussing intersections between art and social justice. The conference’s objectives, however, shifted towards more anti-Israel tones by featuring speakers such as Linda Sarsour, an activist who organized the Women’s March, and Alicia Garza, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter—both of whom vocally oppose the State of Israel and have been accused of antisemitism. Other anti-Israel speakers included director of political engagement at the New York Immigration Coalition Murad Awadeh and author Tania Bruguera who denounce Israel for practicing “apartheid.”²¹

U.S. Programs Grants (2020-2030)

In July 2024, OSF announced an eight-year, $400 million Economic and Climate Prosperity program to promote weather-dependent energy and related industrial policies in developing nations such as Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Senegal, Malaysia, and Indonesia. OSF described the initiative as supporting “green and equitable economic agendas” that address what it termed a “climate emergency.” Capital Research Center investigative researcher Parker Thayer characterized the program as a “horribly misguided idea” and a form of “green colonialism,” while Miriam Lang, professor of environment and sustainability at Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Ecuador, told Leadership News it was “a modern form of colonial appropriation, which is also very absurd.” ^{22 23 24}

A March 2026 white paper published by the right-of-center Pelican Institute for Public Policy ranked the top 30 donors to members of Louisiana Against False Solutions (LAFS), a coalition of left-of-center advocacy groups dedicated to achieving a “transition away from fossil fuels.” While OSF was not among the top donors, it was referred to in the report as a notable contributor to LAFS members. ^{25 26} As of April 2026, LAFS was a fiscally sponsored project of Foundation for Louisiana and was composed of 12 Louisiana-based organizations. According to LAFS’s website, the group was comprised at the time of more than 20 organizations total if one included national groups. ^{25 27}

Following the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023 against the State of Israel, OSF announced a $3.3 million emergency fund to support organizations operating in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. OSF claimed the funding was directed toward human rights groups documenting alleged violations of international law. ²⁸ According to OSF’s own reporting, it had allocated at least $14.3 million to groups working on related issues in 2023 alone, apart from the $3.3 emergency fund. In 2024, OSF’s reported expenditures for the Middle East and North Africa region totaled $19.4 million. OSF also publicly called for a ceasefire in Gaza and welcomed the International Criminal Court’s move to seek arrest warrants against Israeli leaders including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, describing the action as “an important first step toward accountability.” ^{29 30 31}

A September 2025 report by CRC concluded that OSF directed more than $2.3 million between 2016 and 2023 to Al-Haq, a West Bank-based nongovernmental organization with documented ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which the United States and European Union designate as a foreign terrorist organization. Grants to Al-Haq ranged from $400,000 in general support to an $800,000 institutional award. In September 2025, the U.S. State Department sanctioned Al-Haq for advancing campaigns that, in the State Department’s words, “directly engaged in the [International Criminal Court’s] illegitimate targeting of Israel.” OSF also provided grants to Adalah, a legal advocacy organization that has provided legal support to individuals accused of involvement in PFLP terrorist activity, according to CRC and NGO Monitor. OSF denied that its grantees promoted or facilitated terrorism. ^{32 33 34}

In 2021, the foundation committed $20 million through the Open Society Policy Center—its 501(c)(4) lobbying affiliate—to the We Are Home Campaign, which requested Congress to grant a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants and to end deportations. Other coalition partners for Build Back Better-related matters included the Center for American Progress Action Fund, MoveOn, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). ³⁵

In 2026, the Open Society Foundations announced a $30 million, three-year initiative to support organizations combating antisemitism and anti-Muslim discrimination. The initiative was launched amid rising reports of hate incidents connected to tensions surrounding the Israel–Hamas war and broader conflicts in the Middle East. According to the foundation, the funding would support interfaith partnerships, anti-discrimination education, community leadership programs, and protections for lawful free expression. Organizations selected as grantees included the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Jewish Social Justice Roundtable, Nexus Project, and Shoulder to Shoulder. The initiative also drew attention to ongoing debates within Jewish and philanthropic organizations regarding how antisemitism is defined, particularly in relation to criticism of Israeli government policies and Zionism. ^{36 37}

Lobbying

Also see Open Society Policy Center (Nonprofit)

Open Society Foundations’ U.S. Programs work closely with the Open Society Policy Center¹⁶ a sister 501(c)(4) housed in the Open Society Foundations-DC office, which lobbies Congress on domestic and international policy issues. ³⁸

Open Society Foundations president Chris Stone touts Open Society Foundations’ political engagement noting that the group has been using its lobbying efforts to promote amnesty for illegal immigrants, laws to reduce criminal punishment, and for declassification of the so-called Bush “torture report.”¹³

In 2014, then-OSF president Chris Stone claimed that the foundation was “among the very first foundations” to take advantage of new tax rules that allowed for increased political lobbying, by affiliating the Open Society Policy Center 501(c)(4) with Open Society Foundations.  ¹³ Stone also claimed that OSF had a similar operation in Brussels engaging with the European Union (EU). ¹³

Open Society Foundations claimed to advocate against the use of “dark money” spending in politics, ³⁹ however, a 2016 Washington Free Beacon report alleged that the Open Society Policy Center was  “Soros’ dark money group” and noted that in the same year the Open Society Policy Center sought for Open Society Foundations’ U.S. Programs to give $1.5 million dollars to Planned Parenthood’s dark money campaign to protect Planned Parenthood’s more than $500 million in federal subsidies. ⁴⁰

Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic

On April 16, 2020, Open Society Foundations announced that it would be giving $130 million around the globe to aid disadvantaged populations fight the coronavirus by providing economic relief, improving access to medical services, and pushing back against governments that might use the crisis as an excuse to encroach on civil liberties. ⁴¹

“The scale of this pandemic has laid bare the fault lines and injustices of our world,” George Soros said, as quoted in the press release. “We missed the opportunity to create a more just economy after the financial crisis of 2008 and provide a social safety net for the workers who are the heart of our societies. Today, we must change direction and ask ourselves: What kind of world will emerge from this catastrophe, and what can we do to make it a better one?” ⁴¹ 

OSF provided a partial breakdown of where it would spend the $130 million: ⁴¹

• About $42 million to “support low-income workers, including in the informal sector, care givers, and the undocumented; protect refugees, migrants and asylum seekers; and provide access to new vaccines and treatments, regardless of economic or citizenship status.”
• $37 million to “initiatives to support workers and their families in New York City.”
• $12 million to “emergency relief for vulnerable workers in numerous other U.S. cities and states.”
• $2.5 million to “fund additional community efforts in Baltimore, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C.”
• $9 million to the “ongoing struggle to end the excessive use of mandatory imprisonment and detention around the world, which will have a catastrophic impact on health, including for those at greatest risk in crowded facilities in the United States and across Africa, Asia, Eurasia, and Latin America.”
• $3 million for “Europe, including both London and Berlin, for local groups countering disinformation and serving the cities’ most vulnerable people, such as senior citizens. Budapest and Milan have each received over $1 million already.”
• $3.5 million for “southern Africa, through the Open Society Foundation for South Africa and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, to support essential emergency services and care work, and to bolster an equitable public health response from civil society, the media, the government, and the private sector.”

Controversies and Activism

Lack of Transparency

In 2016, the OSF-funded organization Transparify found that Open Society Foundations was the least transparent non-profit among those in the United States which it reviewed. Open Society Foundations earned a global transparency rating of zero stars for non-transparency of the organization’s funding. OSF was the only group in the United States Transparify reviewed in 2016 to receive such a low grade. ⁷

Similarly, the website NGO Monitor wrote that Open Society Foundations’ “Funding of NGOs is entirely non-transparent” as their “annual reports do not provide names of NGO grantees or amounts transferred to individual groups.”⁶

Brett Kavanaugh Confirmation Protests (2018)

Following Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court in October 2018, left-of-center activists funded in part by OSF formed a protest outside the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. At least 50 of the left-of-center groups sponsoring the protest had received funding from OSF or the Foundation to Promote Open Society, and included the American Civil Liberties Union, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Center for Popular Democracy, Human Rights Campaign and … MoveOn.org.” ⁴²

George Floyd Protests (2020)

On July 13, 2020, Open Society Foundations announced that it would be donating $150 million in 5-year grants to several racial justice groups, including Black Voters Matter Fund, Repairers of the Breach, and the Equal Justice Initiative. The group also announced a $70 million donation in local grants towards policing and criminal justice reform, civic engagement, and political training for younger demographics. ⁴³

Support for Reparations

In June 2021, the L.A. Times reported that Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said that Soros’s Open Society Foundations had expressed willingness to fund a program that would give reparations to the city’s African American residents. ⁴⁴

The city of Los Angeles previously allocated $500,000 to set up an advisory committee to identify ways to provide reparations for slavery to its African American citizens. ⁴⁴ Committee members include Cheryl Harris, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) who specializes in critical race theory, and Charisse Bremond-Weaver, then-president of the left-of-center activist group Brotherhood Crusade. ⁴⁴

International Criticism

Open Society Foundations has offices in every region of the world and gives money to grantees in over 100 countries. ⁹ As the publication NGO Monitor wrote, “the administrative and financial complexity of the global Open Society network cannot be overstated,” because outside the U.S. “in most cases it is possible only to ascertain a basic outline of their activities.”⁶

According to Forbes writer Richard Miniter, the problem is that due to Soros’ outsized spending through the Open Society Foundations, “Russia and other nations tend to see Soros as a tool of U.S. policy” in turn see it undercutting American foreign policy efforts. ⁴⁵

Open Society Foundations’ foreign operations have been criticized for compromising U.S. foreign policy in the following manners: ⁴⁵

• Contributing significantly to anti-Israel campaigns by funding groups attempting to portray Israel as a “racist” or those that aim to weaken U.S. support for Israel;²¹
• Making basing arrangements in Central Asian countries for U.S. special operators and drone flights more difficult; and  ⁴⁵
• Drawing the U.S. into a series of ethnic disputes in Central Asia about which the U.S. has insufficient understanding. ⁴⁵

Romania

The Romanian Center for Independent Journalism, an Open Society Institute of New York grantee, has received $17,000 in grants from the U.S. State Department. The Soros-affiliated organization has been criticized for greatly influencing political processes and outcomes in Romania to support his ideological views. In March 2017, the elected leader of Romania’s governing party said that the Soros foundations “that he [Soros] has funded since 1990 have financed evil.”⁴⁶

In October 2017, the right-leaning watchdog group Judicial Watch initiated a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records and documentation of U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding activity related to Soros’ Open Society Foundations affiliates in Romania and Colombia. When the State Department and USAID did not respond to the request, Judicial Watch filed a federal lawsuit. Numerous Soros-funded left-of-center entities and organizations in Romania and Colombia are supported by U.S. government tax dollars.  ⁴⁶

Biden Community Violence Intervention Collaborative

In June 2021, the Biden administration announced a program to combat gun violence and violent crime using a collaborative composed of government and nonprofit organizations funders called Community Violence Intervention (CVI) measures. OSF joins other funders of the collaborative such as California Endowment, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, and the Kellogg Foundation. Other foundations funding the initiative include the Kresge Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, Arnold Ventures, the Emerson Collective, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. CVI strategies “act as an alternative to heavy-handed policing” by focusing its efforts on the minority of citizens who are perpetrators or targets of violent crime. CVI treats violence as a communicable disease rather than a violent crime and attempts to stop the “spread” of violence. ⁴⁷

Tom Perriello’s White House Meetings

In January 2023, Fox News Digital released a news story on how Tom Perriello, then OSF U.S Programs executive director and board member of OSF-funded regulatory policy think tank Governing for Impact (GFI), had reportedly visited the White House a number of times between 2021 and 2022. Between May 2021 and September 2022, Perriello’s name appeared almost 13 times within White House visitor logs on eight separate days. ⁴⁸ Despite log records failing to show with whom he met specifically, they did list the names of several individuals that were in contact with him including Jordan Finkelstein, the Chief of Staff for Biden senior adviser Anita Dunn; Race and Ethnicity Policy Advisor Richard Figueroa; Chief of Staff for the Political Strategy and Outreach Office Rachel Chiu; and Yohannes Abraham, who was previously the Deputy Assistant to the president as well as the Chief of Staff and Executive Secretary of the National Security Council. ⁴⁸ After Fox News Digital released the story, an OSF spokesperson issued a statement claiming that:

“Open Society is dedicated to advancing inclusive democracy and prosperity, and human rights, in the United States and around the world…Our leadership, like our grantees, actively advocate with policymakers to advance these goals, and that includes engaging with policymakers from both parties. Tom also has taken meetings on behalf of Open Society and in his personal capacity as a former Member of Congress.” ⁴⁹

Neither OSF nor the White House responded to inquiries as to the nature of Perriello’s meetings. Capital Research Center (CRC) investigative reporter Parker Thayer, who first identified the GFI group and reported it to Fox News Digital, commented, “Perriello’s frequent lunch meetings at the White House are just more proof that Governing for Impact, and by extension George Soros, is secretly calling the shots on regulations that will affect the daily lives of millions.” ⁴⁸

Trump Administration Investigations

In September 2025, the New York Times reported that the U.S. Department of Justice had instructed certain U.S. attorney’s offices to investigate the Open Society Foundations for possible charges that were said to include arson, racketeering, wire fraud, and material support of terrorism. According to the Times, a Department attorney directed those offices to evaluate available evidence and to consider criminal proceedings if they felt prosecution was justified.⁵⁰

Evidence the Department presented to the offices for consideration reportedly included a report by the Capital Research Center entitled Open Society, Closed Eyes: The $80 Million Soros Pipeline to Extremism. The report concluded that since 2016, the Open Society Foundations “poured over $80 million into groups tied to terrorism or extremist violence.” The Open Society Foundations denied the allegations and stated that “our activities are peaceful and lawful.”^{50 51}

In response to a letter from Congress sent to OSF in November 2025 regarding the investigations, OSF President Binaifer Nowroje released a statement alleging “Open Society has not changed anything that it’s doing, and if we feel that our rights for free speech or the right for peaceful protest is being infringed on, we will move to court to defend our rights.” ⁵² In addition, OSF’s X (formerly Twitter) account posted a statement alleging “We are standing firm in the face of any challenges…Governments’ politically motivated attacks on civil society are meant to silence speech authorities disagree with and undermine First Amendment rights.” ^{52 53}

Columbia University Grant

In 2025, the Open Society Foundations (OSF) faced criticism after awarding Columbia University a $600,000 grant to produce an oral history of the foundation and its founder, George Soros. The project, intended to document OSF’s evolution and philanthropic impact, drew attention because it followed a sweeping internal reorganization in which OSF cut more than 40 percent of its global workforce and reduced grantmaking. Observers questioned the optics of funding a legacy-oriented project amid layoffs and budget tightening. ⁵⁴

Leadership

President

As of 2026, Binaifer Nowrojee was the president of the Open Society Foundations. Nowrojee previously worked as vice president of OSF, was the first regional director for the Asia-Pacific OSF division, and was the founding director of the East Africa OSF division. Prior to OSF, she worked as an investigator at Human Rights Watch (HRW), was a lecturer at Harvard Law School, and a fellow at Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights. ^{55 56}

Mark Malloch-Brown was the previous president of OSF, serving in the role starting in January 2021 following the resignation of previous president Patrick Gaspard in December 2020. Malloch-Brown was a former UN deputy secretary‐general, a former minister in the U.K. Government under former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and a former OSF board member. Before becoming UN deputy secretary-general, Malloch-Brown was the administrator of the UN Development Program and a previous vice president for the World Bank. ⁵⁷

Patrick Gaspard was appointed president of OSF starting in September 2017 following Christopher Stone‘s departure from the organization. Gaspard previously served as a top aide to former President Barack Obama and as a national Democratic Party official. ⁵⁸ He left OSF in late 2020. ⁵⁹

Christopher Stone worked as president of OSF from 2011 through 2017, until he stepped down from the position. He previously worked as a Guggenheim Professor of the Practice of Criminal Justice at Harvard Kennedy School, as well as the former director of the Vera Institute for Justice. ⁶⁰

Board of Directors

As of 2025, the OSF’s board of directors is chaired by Alexander Soros, son of OSF founder George Soros. Alexander Soros is also the founding chair of Bend the Arc Jewish Action. As of 2025, he is a board member for Bard College, the Center for Jewish History, the Central European University, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and International Crisis Group. ^{61 62}

Other Staff

As of July 2025, Sean Savett was the associate director of communications with the Open Society Foundations. He previously served as the spokesperson for the National Security Council during the Biden administration. ⁶³