Open Society Foundations deepens staff cuts with latest 40% reduction

Open Society Foundations is launching into the next phase of its reorganization with another round of staff cuts that its board said are aimed at helping the pro-democracy philanthropy “counter the forces currently threatening open and free societies.” OSF’s board of directors last week approved a series of changes that includes reducing staff globally by at least 40%, Bloomberg was the first to report. The staff cuts are part of an ongoing reorganization first announced in 2021 that the nonprofit has said is necessary for it to respond more quickly to global crises and priority issues such as promoting human rights. A spokesperson for Open Society Foundations confirmed news of the reduction to Devex but declined to provide further details about which offices and regions would be affected. The reduction will be in addition to the 20% staff reduction Devex reported in April. At that time, OSF said that it had downsized its headcount to 1,170 from the 1,684 staff it had prior to starting its transformation. OSF now has about 800 staff globally, the spokesperson told Devex this week. So with the latest round of cuts, OSF’s headcount will be far less than half what it was three years ago. “The Board has directed Open Society’s senior leadership to proceed with the work necessary to implement this new approach in accordance with local requirements and obligations to our employees,” the spokesperson said in an email, referring to the need to abide by relevant labor laws in the regions where OSF operates and has offices. OSF operates in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the United States. Within the past two years, the organization has shuttered several offices and national foundations in an effort to streamline and reduce its operating costs. The latest batch of “significant changes” follows the recent revelation that Alexander Soros replaced his father and OSF founder George Soros as chair of the board late last year. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the younger Soros described himself as “more political” than his father and spoke about wanting to become more engaged with domestic U.S. politics. Alex Soros, who was previously deputy chair, also has been credited with increasing OSF’s annual spending in Latin America to $60 million from $12 million. The board expects the reorganization “will create a culture of ‘strategic opportunism’ at the Foundations and among grantees they support,” according to a statement posted on Friday that was co-signed by Alex Soros and OSF president and board member Mark Malloch-Brown. “This proposed new model will favor both longer-term ‘patient capital’ approaches as well as tactical short-term needs,” the statement reads. Patient capital is the practice of making financial investments that prioritize sustainable growth over financial returns and are usually maintained for many years. Malloch-Brown has spoken of the need for OSF to change to meet the “challenges” of a changing political environment in which authoritarianism is surfacing in many countries. And Alex Soros has expressed an openness toward supporting political and activist groups through traditional and non-traditional philanthropy channels. “If there is a right way to have a foundation, I’m agnostic toward it,” he said.