NEW YORK — Open Society Foundations pledged $300 million over the next five years toward initiatives to defend democratic rights and advance economic security in the United States. The New York-based grantmaker, founded by George Soros, committed $20 million of that total for use this year on organizations working through strategic litigation, nonprofit sector defense, and efforts to track government corruption.

The new democracy strategy is the first U.S.-focused program approved under the leadership of Alex Soros, who has overseen a yearslong restructuring of the foundations and major layoffs. The initiative integrates support for democratic rights and economic justice as two sides of the same effort, building on a tradition linking liberty and livelihood from Franklin Roosevelt through Martin Luther King Jr.

"Guaranteed rights and freedoms are just as critical as broad economic prosperity and are the strongest defense we have against a closed society. Our new investments will tackle these twin challenges," said Alex Soros, chair of the Open Society Foundations.

In 2025, President Donald Trump and his allies rolled out an effort to influence nonprofits and charitable funders through executive orders, withholding funding, or threatening investigations. Trump's allies in Congress have asked the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice to investigate nonprofits they accuse of supporting domestic terrorism, illegal immigration, or climate programs they disagree with. In December, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered law enforcement to investigate nonprofits that support antifa, an umbrella term for far-left-leaning groups designated a domestic terrorist organization by Trump. The Trump administration has accused the Soros family of supporting violence and fostering division.

"We are continuing our work unabated. We will not 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," said Laleh Ispahani, managing director for the U.S. at Open Society Foundations.

The foundation will look for state-level policies that strengthen protections for vulnerable groups and help create a fair economy for the working class. Its previous U.S. democracy strategy had poured at least $220 million into building a multiracial, multifaith, pro-democracy alliance with five-year grants to community-based groups led by people of color and women. Past grantees include the Roosevelt Institute, the Groundwork Collaborative, the National Women's Law Center, and Living United for Change in Arizona.

The foundations is also advocating for an expansion of the civil rights paradigm to meet modern threats, from securing the right to elect representatives of the voter's choice to combating new forms of discrimination in algorithmic and technology-driven bias. The child poverty rate in the U.S. stands at 14.3%, affecting about 10.4 million children, while the top 20% of households capture more than half of all national income. George Soros has given more than $32 billion of his personal fortune to causes around the world.