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Fact check: Has the open society foundation given to the human rights campaign
Executive summary
The record shows that the Open Society Foundations (OSF) have provided philanthropic support connected to programs of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) ecosystem: OSF is listed as a supporter of HRC Foundation’s Global Small Grants program, and at least one prior grant to HRC-related activity appears in reporting that OSF gave $120,000 in 2012 to an HRC Foundation-linked effort [1] [2]. At the same time, much public attention has focused on OSF’s substantially larger, separately reported $100 million grant to Human Rights Watch in 2010, which is often cited in the same conversations about Soros-funded human-rights philanthropy but is distinct from HRC funding [3] [4]. The documentation therefore supports the central claim that OSF has funded HRC-affiliated work, while underscoring that major OSF human-rights grants are broader and sometimes conflated in public discourse [3] [1] [2].
1. Direct support: tracing the records that link Open Society to HRC
Public materials indicate OSF support for specific HRC Foundation initiatives rather than large, headline-grabbing multi-million dollar donations. The HRC Foundation’s Global Small Grants program lists OSF among several supporters of the program, though the public announcement does not specify an amount tied to OSF’s support [1]. Independent reporting and compilations of philanthropic activity have identified a $120,000 OSF contribution in 2012 to an HRC-related initiative, an amount that establishes a direct funding relationship even if it is modest relative to the foundation’s largest grants [2]. Those two pieces of evidence together demonstrate that OSF has not only funded international human-rights entities but has also directed funds to LGBT-focused work connected to HRC, which is recorded in organizational acknowledgements and third-party reporting [1] [2].
2. Bigger grants to other human-rights groups that shape the narrative
OSF’s philanthropy includes much larger, well-documented grants to other human-rights organizations, which often get conflated with donations to HRC in public debate. The most prominent example is a publicly announced $100 million grant from the Open Society Institute to Human Rights Watch in 2010 intended to expand HRW’s international capacity, a high-profile allocation that has shaped media and political narratives about Soros’s human-rights giving [3] [4]. Reports about the National Security and Human Rights Campaign and OSF’s programmatic grantmaking further underscore that OSF prioritizes capacity-building across multiple human-rights organizations, which can obscure smaller, targeted grants to groups like HRC unless researchers parse grant-level disclosures [5] [6].
3. What the sources say — and where they leave questions open
The available sources are consistent in showing OSF involvement with HRC Foundation programs, but they vary in specificity and currency. Organizational press materials and program pages identify OSF as a supporter of specific HRC Foundation initiatives without naming amounts in each instance [1] [7]. Independent reporting and philanthropy trackers have filled that gap by documenting a specific $120,000 contribution in 2012 [2]. However, some program descriptions and earlier campaign materials describing OSF’s National Security and Human Rights work do not mention HRC, reflecting differences between OSF’s global human-rights strategy and its domestic grants, which complicates efforts to create a single, comprehensive ledger of all OSF-to-HRC transactions [5] [6].
4. Why amounts, program context, and timing matter for interpretation
Context changes the import of any single grant. A six-figure gift like $120,000 to an HRC Foundation program signals targeted support for specific projects, whereas a grant on the order of $100 million to Human Rights Watch is transformational and intended to scale an international organization’s capacity; conflating these two types of grants misstates scale and intent [2] [3]. OSF’s portfolio includes both domestic, program-level backing and large international investments; understanding whether a donation is core support, project funding, or token partnership requires reading grant descriptions and timing included in source records, which vary in their granularity and date-stamping [1] [4].
5. Bottom line and useful follow-ups for verification
The best-supported conclusion is that OSF has funded HRC-affiliated work, including documented support for the HRC Foundation’s Global Small Grants program and a reported 2012 contribution of $120,000, while OSF’s most prominent human-rights grant of $100 million in 2010 went to Human Rights Watch — a separate entity often invoked in discussions about Soros’s philanthropy [1] [2] [3]. For tighter verification, consult HRC Foundation annual reports, OSF’s grants database, and public tax filings for the years around 2010–2013 to match grant amounts, dates, and program descriptions; these sources will resolve remaining questions about scale and purpose [7] [5].