A prominent nonprofit group founded by liberal megadonor George Soros announced plans to dump more than $200 million into initiatives dedicated to ending racial inequality.
The Open Society Foundations will announce its $220 million funding mission on Monday, committing $150 million to racial justice organizations that are under the leadership of black people and $70 million to organizations that promote civic engagement or local criminal justice reform initiatives.
“These investments will empower proven leaders in the black community to re-imagine policing, end mass incarceration, and eliminate the barriers to opportunity that have been the source of inequity for too long,” Alexander Soros, George Soros’s son and the organization’s deputy chair, told the New York Times.
The Open Society Foundations have already selected many of the groups that will receive funding, including the Black Voters Matter Fund, a group that promotes black participation in elections, and the Equal Justice Initiative, an organization working to end mass incarceration of black citizens.
“There is this call for justice in black and brown communities, an explosion of not just sympathy but solidarity across the board. So it’s time to double down. And we understood we can place a bet on these activists, black and white, who see this as a moment of not just incrementalism, but whole-scale reform,” said Patrick Gaspard, the organization’s president.
Gaspard noted that the Open Society Foundations have been funding organizations that aim to help black citizens and encourage black voter turnout for more than 25 years. George Soros, 89, has been one of the nation’s most prolific donors to liberal causes and Democratic elected officials.
His deep pockets and Jewish heritage have driven far-right conspiracy theories about the methods of advocacy he supports. Earlier this year, the Open Society Foundations denied conspiracy theories that claimed the organization was funding violent rioters following the death of George Floyd.
“I think partly it’s an attempt to distract from the real matters at hand — the pandemic, the protests or the Black Lives Matter movement,” Laura Silber, a spokeswoman for Soros, said at the time. “It’s pretty demeaning to the people out there protesting when someone says they’re all paid. It’s insulting.”
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story misstated the name of the Open Society Foundations. This has been corrected.
