Soros Foundation Pledges $300M for US Economic Security and Civil Liberties

The Open Society Foundations, founded by billionaire philanthropist George Soros, announced Tuesday a $300 million commitment to bolster economic security and defend civil liberties in the United States.

The investment comes 16 months into President Donald Trump’s second term, as millions of Americans grapple with an affordability crisis and activists warn of an extraordinary assault on the rule of law.

For decades, the OSF has focused on advancing justice and human rights in Africa, the Middle East and other trouble spots worldwide, but its latest major investment targets a crisis closer to home.

“We certainly believe that civil society is essential and must stay on the playing field,” said Laleh Ispahani, managing director for the US at the OSF. “We’ve had experience in other countries, unfortunately, where civil society has been targeted by autocratic administrations. It does matter that we still are funding in most parts of the world and are very much in communication with one another as things are happening in the US.”

Soros has given more than $32 billion of his personal fortune to global causes and is a longtime Democratic donor and frequent target of right-wing criticism, often relying on antisemitic tropes that frame the Jewish survivor of Nazi-occupied Hungary as a “globalist” puppet master.

Asked whether the foundation was prepared for backlash accusing Soros of meddling in US democracy, Ispahani sounded unfazed, saying: “We fully expect that. We wouldn’t expect anything less.”

“But we also won’t be intimidated into silence. We think our work has never mattered more. It matters most in places when democracy is under attack, when rights are being rolled back and peaceful dissent is being criminalised. We expect it, we’re prepared for it and we will keep at it,” she added.

Theguardian.org has received funding from OSF for climate and democracy reporting, but all editorial content remains independent.

For decades, reformers have often operated in silos, focusing either squarely on democratic rights or exclusively on economic justice. OSF’s new initiative aims to break down those barriers.

Ispahani explained: “What’s new and different and perhaps most distinct about this is that it’s a unified and focused effort. We want to fund this integrated strategy to improve our democracy by both modernising our rights and freedoms and reforming our economy as things that are two sides of the same coin, because when one suffers, inevitably the other does, too.”

The approach builds on a tradition from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal to Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights movement that links liberty to livelihood. “The thought is not necessarily a new one because proponents of the civil rights movement and Roosevelt-era New Deal understood that these things go hand in hand. We certainly need a new social compact today,” Ispahani added.

The urgency stems from what OSF sees as an alarming reversal of fundamental protections, driven by a right-wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It’s pretty clear to us that today these rights are being rolled back, including the right to protest, civil rights and voting rights, with the supreme court’s recent decisions eviscerating very key protections of the civil rights era,” Ispahani said.

She cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Louisiana v. Callais case, which she said “putting a nail in the coffin of what was a very widely respected Voting Rights Act,” pushing the country back to a “pre-60s moment.”

To counter this, OSF advocates expanding the civil rights paradigm to address modern threats, including algorithmic bias, technology-driven discrimination, and securing the right to elect representatives of voters’ choice.

The foundation has already committed $20 million this year to organizations on the front lines, supporting strategic litigation, nonprofit sector defense, and tracking government corruption. Grantees include the Roosevelt Institute, the Groundwork Collaborative, the National Women’s Law Center, and state-level groups like Living United for Change in Arizona.

The other central pillar of the $300 million investment is economic security. Even in the world’s wealthiest country, the child poverty rate stands at 14.3%, affecting about 10.4 million children, while the top 20% of households capture more than half of national income.

“Why not have moral and material rights that resonate across constituencies?” Ispahani said. “The right to a good job with fair wages and safe working conditions isn’t controversial. The right to stable and affordable housing is likely very popular. The right to accessible and affordable childcare is likely also very popular. The right to healthcare and bodily autonomy the same. The right to safe communities free from violence also the same. And the right to economic mobility and opportunity regardless of background the same.”