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Open Society Foundations said it will invest $300 million over the next five years in U.S. democracy initiatives aimed at defending democratic rights and advancing economic security, including protections for civil rights.
The new strategy arrives amid what the foundation described as escalating scrutiny of the Soros family. The AP reported that the Trump administration has singled out the Soros family and that allies have accused the foundations of supporting violence and fostering division, part of broader efforts announced in 2025 to influence nonprofits and charitable funders through executive orders, withheld funding, or threatened investigations.
Laleh Ispahani, managing director for the U.S. at Open Society Foundations, said the foundation would not slow its work. “We are continuing our work unabated. We will not be intimidated into silence,” she said when asked about the administration’s attacks on the Soros family.
The AP report said the president’s allies in Congress have asked the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice to investigate nonprofits they accuse of backing domestic terrorism, illegal immigration, or climate programs they disagree with. It said that in December, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered law enforcement to investigate nonprofits supporting antifa, an umbrella term the report described as far-left-leaning groups that Trump has designated a domestic terrorist organization. When asked if the Justice Department was looking into Open Society, the AP reported that a DOJ spokesperson said the department does not comment on investigations.
Ispahani said Open Society Foundations has provided grants in the past year to groups working to defend the rule of law and push back on policies she said deter parts of the U.S. population from participating in public life. She described the foundation’s new strategy as pairing economic-security goals with civil-rights protections rather than treating them as separate efforts.
The foundation said it will seek state-level policies that strengthen protections for vulnerable groups that could be replicated elsewhere, as well as policies that support what it described as a fair economy for working-class people. Ispahani said “You can’t address the racial wealth gap without tackling core, working class economic issues like living wages, affordable child care and housing.”
Open Society Foundations said it 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. Those efforts include strategic litigation, nonprofit sector defense, and work to track government corruption in the U.S. The AP reported that the new democracy strategy is the first new program that works solely in the U.S. that the foundation has approved under Alex Soros, one of George Soros’ sons, who has overseen a restructuring of the foundations and major layoffs.
Alex Soros, the AP reported, said in a statement that the foundation’s new investments tackle what he described as “twin challenges.” He said, “Guaranteed rights and freedoms are just as critical as broad economic prosperity and are the strongest defense we have against a closed society,” adding that “Our new investments will tackle these twin challenges.”
The AP also laid out broader context for philanthropic funding of democracy-related work. It said that for many years, large philanthropic foundations were less involved in supporting democracy in the U.S., and noted that charitable foundations are restricted from directly supporting candidates or political parties, but can fund a range of nonpartisan activities such as voter registration, civic education, journalism, policy development, or government accountability.
Citing research by Kristin Anne Goss of Duke University, the AP said foundations that allocated resources toward democracy-related activities did so more heavily during the late Obama years and into Trump’s first term, and that among the largest foundations giving to democracy as a percentage of overall giving increased between 2013 and 2020. The report also cited David Wolcheck, lead data analyst for research at the nonprofit Candid, who found foundation support for democracy-related activities tripled between 2016 and 2020 before dropping by a third the following year, with Wolcheck saying further research was needed to determine why.