NEW YORK — Open Society Foundations, the philanthropic organizations that billionaire investors George Soros has built up since the 1970s, announced its first major new commitment on Tuesday after a years-long internal reorganization, pledging $400 million over eight years to support green economic development.
In one of her first public comments since being appointed chairman of OSF In March, Binaifer Nowrojee told The Associated Press that the investment aimed to create sustainable jobs and shift from carbon-intensive industries to clean energy in Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Senegal, Malaysia and Indonesia.
“The idea of free markets can’t solve everything, and certainly not the climate crisis,” she said Monday from OSF’s office in Washington. The foundations will support think tanks, governments and civil society organizations in these middle-income countries.
“How do you improve regulations to reduce pollution? How do you create tax breaks for companies that embrace green technologies? How do you address the whole issue of critical minerals?” Nowrojee said those are the kinds of questions OSF is asking with this new funding. “How do you help governments build green infrastructure — solar, wind, hydro? And how do you lift up workers with the changing nature of work?”
Nowrojee, a Kenyan human rights lawyer who has worked at OSF for 20 years, took over the helm of the $25 billion philanthropy after three years. acquisitions, layoffs and structural changes That has rippled through the places and the causes it supports. OSF is one of the largest funders of human rights activists and supporters of political dissent around the world. the provision of new subsidies has been stopped over the past year, as the company transitioned to what it called a new business model.
The changes are widely seen as being driven by Alex Soros, one of the sons of George Soros, who was elected Chairman of the OSF Board in December 2022.
According to Nowrojee, beneficiaries whose funding will stop have been notified. OSF ultimately awarded these organizations $300 million in the form of final grants.
Kathleen Enright, president and CEO of the Council on Foundations, said foundations are reevaluating their strategies in response to changing external circumstances, such as new regulations or a shifting political climate. She said philanthropic leaders have an obligation to make strategic changes to better fulfill their missions.
“If you’re being held back in any way by your own internal processes, of course you have the opportunity to make that change,” Enright said.
When OSF was founded 45 years ago, it set up country-specific foundations. Nowrojee says these worked well as a wave of democratization swept through Eastern Europe and other countries. OSF has been spun off Many of these foundations are independent organizations.
“If you look at a global pandemic or climate change, and the national model where we invested in separate, different teams that were in different countries, it doesn’t add up. We didn’t add up to the sum of our parts,” Nowrojee said.
Soros, a Hungarian Jew who made his fortune as an investor, most famously in foreign exchange, survived the Nazi occupation and eventually emigrated to the United Kingdom and then to the United States, where he became a citizen. The foundations, which include a number of international and U.S.-based entities, have worked to promote his view that “no single philosophy or ideology is the final arbiter of truth, and that societies can only flourish if they provide space for democratic governance, freedom of expression and respect for individual rights,” the website of the foundation.
That remains their mission, Nowrojee said, though their approach may change because the world has changed. The space for political dissent and free speech has closed in some countries where OSF has invested heavily for years. These include Myanmar, which ruled by the military since 2021and Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government effectively forced out OSF and the Central European University, which Soros also founded. Authoritarianism and populism are on the rise in many countries, including Europe.
Last year, OSF said it would lay off 40% of its 800 employees worldwide, a process that is still ongoing. It expects to have between 500 and 600 employees, Nowrojee said, acknowledging that the cuts have taken their toll.
“These changes have been extremely difficult, not just for us, but for the grantees and the people in the larger network that we work with,” she said. Her goal for her first year as OSF president is to try to heal some of the sadness, grief and anger that is felt internally, and she is also focused on finalizing the other new major funding programs, which must be approved by the board.
OSF’s board now consists of six members, including three members of the Soros family, up from more than twenty in 2016 and 2017.
As funders refocus their priorities and end relationships with longtime donors, they should intentionally engage them and the communities where they worked to see who will be affected by the changes, said Mark Greer, philanthropic advisor at Phila Engaged Giving, an advisory firm that works with high-net-worth donors.
“Everyone has biases. Everyone has blind spots. And often, communities that are not intentionally involved in the process are overlooked,” he said.
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