Open Society Foundations

Open Society Foundations
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Formation	1993
Founder	George Soros
Headquarters	New York
Type	NGO
Interest of	DCLeaks, Joseph Muscat, Karl Popper
Member of	European Policy Centre, First Draft, Friends of Europe
Sponsored by	EuroMaidan, Luminate, Open Philanthropy
Subpage	•Open Society Foundations/Board •Open Society Foundations/Recipients •Open Society Foundations/Reliable allies •Open Society Foundations/Vice-Chairman

Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is an international grantmaking network founded by business tycoon George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially support civil society groups around the world, with a stated aim of advancing justice, education, public health and independent media. Of course, the real aims are to create anything but independence, but a a cadre of beholden politicians, activist and media that support open markets benefiting US political and economic dominance.

Overview

The OSF has branches in 37 countries, encompassing a group of country and regional foundations, such as the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa; its headquarters are in New York City. In 2018, OSF announced it was closing its European office in Budapest and moving to Berlin, in response to legislation passed by the Hungarian government targeting the foundation's activities. Since its establishment in 1993, OSF has reported expenditures in excess of $11 billion mostly in grants towards NGOs, aligned with the organisation's mission.

Media

All Soros foundations participate in media development to some extent.

Criticism

Nicolas Guilhot, a senior research associate of CNRS, argues that The Open Society Foundations serve to perpetuate institutions that reinforce the existing social order, as the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation (both with strong ties to the US government / CIA) have done before them. Guilhot argues that control over the social sciences by moneyed interests has depoliticized this field and reinforced a capitalist view of modernization. Through its funding it can create movements or civil society groups and spread ideas to media organisations or government bodies to make believe there is public support for or against an issue - i.e. Astroturfing.

Evictions

In 2015, Russia banned the activities of the Open Society Foundations on its territory, declaring "It was found that the activity of the Open Society Foundations and the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation represents a threat to the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation and the security of the state.

In 2017, the government of Pakistan ordered the Open Society Foundation to cease operations within the country.

In November 2018, Open Society Foundations announced they are ceasing operations in Turkey and closing their İstanbul and Ankara offices due to "false accusations and speculations beyond measure", amid pressure from Turkish government and governmental interference through detainment of Turkish intellectuals and liberal academics claimed to be associated with the foundation and related NGOs, associations and programmes.

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Foundation	“"During the 1950s and 1960s, the CIA turned increasingly to covert action in the area of student and labor matters, cultural affairs, and community developments. ... The CIA subsidized, advised, and even helped develop "private" organizations that would compete with the communists around the world. ... [Many] were U.S.-based student, labor, cultural, or philanthropic organizations whose international activities the CIA subsidized. ... "The philanthropic [CIA] fronts used prior to 1967 funded a seemingly limitless range of covert action programs affecting youth groups, labor unions, universities, publishing houses, and other private institutions in the United States and abroad. ... Support [was provided to, for instance] an international organization of veterans and an international foundation for developing countries [as well as] an organization of journalists and an international women's association. ... Agency funds were used to host foreign visitors [and] provide scholarships to an international cooperative training center at a United States university... The CIA assisted in the establishment in 1951 and the funding for over a decade of a research institute at a major American university. ... "By 1967, when public disclosure of NSA [National Student Association]'s funding ... caused a major curtailment of these activities, interest in the major covert action efforts in these areas was already waning. "There appear to be two reasons for this. First, there was considerable skepticism within the CIA as to the effectiveness of this approach. ... Richard Helms [explained], "The clandestine operator ... is trained to believe that you really can't count on the honesty of your agent to do exactly what you want or to report accurately unless you own him body and soul." "Second, it became increasingly difficult to conceal the CIA funds that supported these activities as the scale of the operations grew. By fiscal year 1967, for example, over $3 million [$22.5 million in 2018] was budgeted for youth and student programs and $6 million [$45 million in 2018] for labor. Most of the funds were transmitted through legitimate or "devised" foundations — that is, fictitious entities established by the CIA. "The use of philanthropic organizations was a convenient way to pass funds, in that large amounts could be transferred rapidly, and in a form that need not alert unwitting officers of the recipient organizations to their source. In addition, foundation grants bestowed upon the recipient the apparent "blessing" of the foundation. The funding pattern involved a mixture of bona fide charitable foundations, devised foundations and funds, [CIA] "front men" drawn from a list of America's most prominent citizens, and lawyers representing undisclosed clients. "The CIA's intrusion into the foundation field in the 1960s can only be described as massive. Excluding grants from the "Big Three" — Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie — of the 700 grants over $10,000 given by 164 other foundations during the period 1963-1966, at least 108 involved partial or complete CIA funding. More importantly, CIA funding was involved in nearly half the grants the non-"Big Three" foundations made during this period in the field of international activities. In the same period more than one-third of the grants awarded by non-"Big Three" in the physical, life and social sciences also involved CIA funds. "Bona fide foundations, rather than those controlled by the CIA, were considered the best and most plausible kind of funding cover for certain kinds of operations. A 1966 CIA study explained the use of legitimate foundations was the most effective way of concealing the CIA's hand as well as reassuring members of funded organizations that the organization was in fact supported by private funds."”	Church Committee
Sigrid Kaag	“Soros is a known philanthropist, that has committed himself through his Open Society Foundations for a democratic playground and the power of the civil society. Luckily you don't have to call it "left-wing" or "right-wing" but about the human rights and organizations that operate in countries where those are suppressed and where his support has been of vital importance and really relevant and I regret the framing of him.”	Sigrid Kaag	22 September 2020
Jolyon Maugham	“George Soros has become one of the great bulwarks against fascism. He hasn't given @GoodLawProject any money. But I aspire to it acquiring sufficient influence that he does.”	Jolyon Maugham	8 February 2018
Samantha Power	“Today, the Foundations are active on every continent, striving to promote vibrant and tolerant democracies with strong civic institutions and justice and health systems that work. It is rare that a week goes by, in my new incarnation [as United Nations Ambassador] — and I mean this — where I don’t meet an ambassador to the United Nations, a head of state or minister, a journalist or civil society advocate who didn’t either graduate from the Central European University, receive an Open Society grant, or once run an Open Society office. That’s how much George has populated the planet with his dedication to human rights and human dignity,””	Samantha Power	7 November 2013
Slovakia	“"My foundations contributed to democratic regime change in Slovakia in 1998, Croatia in 1999, and Yugoslavia in 2000, mobilizing civil society to get rid of Vladimir Meciar, Franjo Tudjman, and Slobodan Milosevic, respectively," Soros boasts.”	George Soros

 

Employees on Wikispooks

Employee	Job	Appointed	End	Description
Ann Beeson	Executive Director of U.S. Programs	June 2007	2011
Morton Halperin	Director of U.S. advocacy	2005	2008
Morton Halperin	Director of the Washington Office	2002	2005
Mabel van Oranje	Director of EU affairs	1997	2001	Her first official link with George Soros
Mabel van Oranje	International Advocacy Director London Division	2002	2008	"Coordinated all international OSI advocacy activities aimed at international policy change"

 

Sponsors

Event	Description
EuroMaidan	Ukraine coup of 2014
Luminate	Pierre Omidyar's foundation for financing global media and civil society groups. It is unknown how close it coordinates with certain deep state US government agencies.
Open Philanthropy	Grant maker funneling deep state money among other things to pandemic planning. Financed Event 201.

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