What specific organizations and causes has George Soros funded in the United States and how much have they received?
Executive summary
George Soros has funneled money into U.S. causes through personal donations, his family vehicle Soros Fund Management, and a network of foundations and fiscal-sponsorship nonprofits clustered under the Open Society Foundations; the network reported giving roughly $140 million to advocacy and ballot groups in 2021 and Soros has transferred tens of billions to Open Society over decades [1] [2]. Public reporting identifies multiple specific beneficiaries—progressive political committees, criminal-justice reform groups, higher-education institutions and local nonprofits—but exact totals by recipient are often blurred by intermediary grants, fiscal sponsorships and differing tax classifications [1] [3] [4].
1. Funding vehicles and overall scale: Open Society Foundations and personal transfers
The dominant channel for Soros’s U.S. philanthropy is the Open Society Foundations (OSF), which Soros has funded with more than $32 billion of his personal fortune and uses to award grants across civil rights, governance and education; OSF describes itself as supporting “individuals and organizations” for justice and accountability [2] [5] [6]. Tax filings and reporting show Soros also moves money through 501(c) charities, 501(c) advocacy groups and fiscal-sponsor intermediaries that can regrant to local campaigns and ballot initiatives, complicating efforts to ascribe one-to-one dollar totals to end recipients [1].
2. Political and advocacy spending: the headline numbers and how they flow
CNBC reported that a Soros-financed nonprofit funneled approximately $140 million into advocacy organizations and ballot initiatives in 2021, with an additional roughly $60 million to like-minded charities that year; the same reporting said Soros personally donated about $170 million during the 2022 midterms as well, and that funds often move between Soros-affiliated nonprofits before reaching voter-facing groups [1] [7]. OpenSecrets and other tracking outlets show Soros and his family have been major funders of progressive outside spending over many cycles, though totals vary by methodology and reporting period [8] [9].
3. Electoral campaigns, ‘Soros prosecutors,’ and criminal-justice reform grants
Soros has long backed political infrastructure and reform-minded prosecutors: watchdogs tracking “Soros prosecutor” funding estimate at least $50 million was spent to elect progressive prosecutors over the past decade, and OpenSecrets has tracked hundreds of millions to liberal groups across cycles [10] [11]. Historical high-impact examples include large 527-style expenditures in 2003–2004—about $23.6 million in that cycle—to groups opposing President George W. Bush, an episode frequently cited to illustrate Soros’s political strategy [12] [4].
4. Higher education, cultural and public-interest grants
Soros’s foundations have been substantial donors to American higher education and cultural institutions: reporting compiled by UniversityPhilanthropy documents that U.S. universities were the largest beneficiaries of Open Society higher-education giving in a recent multi-year window, with Bard College named as a major recipient (over $52 million 2014–2018 and a further $100 million announced in 2020) [3]. OSF’s grantmaking language emphasizes civil-society, research and legal work rather than direct electoral spending when describing its charitable portfolio [5].
5. Local grants, journalism and the politics of transparency
Local reporting and advocacy groups document Soros-funded activity at the city level—examples include millions directed to Baltimore nonprofits through OSF entities—and critics argue that fiscal-sponsorship structures like the Sixteen Thirty Fund and similar conduits enable large-scale influence without immediate public visibility [13] [7]. Proponents say such structures provide essential administrative support for public-interest campaigns; opponents call the opacity an accountability problem, a debate reflected across the sources [7].
6. What can and cannot be known from available reporting
Public sources establish that Soros (and the Open Society network) has provided many hundreds of millions, and in aggregate many billions over decades, to U.S. causes spanning electoral politics, criminal-justice reform, education and civil-society work [2] [1] [12]. Precise, recipient-level dollar counts are limited by regranting, fiscal sponsorship, and differing tax categories; reporting outlets (CNBC, OpenSecrets, philanthropic trackers and local outlets) provide snapshots—$140 million to advocacy in 2021, historical multi-million-dollar university gifts, and estimates like $50 million toward prosecutor campaigns—but a definitive, line-by-line ledger of “who got what” from Soros is not fully disclosed in these sources [1] [3] [10].