2007 Assets: $1,484,154,992
2007 Income: $299,605,694
EIN: 13-7029285
Founded 1993
Exempt since November 1994

The Open Society Institute is mapped on Muckety.

Self-Description: The Open Society Institute works to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens. To achieve its mission, OSI seeks to shape public policies that assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and safeguard fundamental rights. On a local level, OSI implements a range of initiatives to advance justice, education, public health, and independent media. At the same time, OSI builds alliances across borders and continents on issues such as corruption and freedom of information. OSI places a high priority on protecting and improving the lives of people in marginalized communities.

Actual: A global network of dozens of Soros entities that have paid millions to overthrow governments in the Soviet Union, Serbia, Georgia, and the United States. The American agenda of Soros foundations has little system and is more a hodge-podge of Soros' personal interests, which tend to be leftist provocations more than steady programs. His personal attitudes about America are very negative and he regards capitalism to be the major threat to the world, as he once regarded communism to be. Soros makes no secret of his beliefs: he has written several books including "The Bubble of American Supremacy" and "Reforming Global Capitalism." The man who made it big because of America and capitalism now hates both and seeks to destroy them.
Soros foundations consist of national foundations in 29 countries, foundations in Kosovo and Montenegro, and two regional foundations, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA). OSISA and OSIWA, make grants in a total of 27 African countries. In 2003, Soros said that removing President George W. Bush from office was one of his main priorities. During the 2004 campaign, he donated $23 million to various groups dedicated to defeating the president.

Origin of the Wealth: George Soros is the founder of one of the first offshore hedge funds, the Quantum Fund, through which he accumulated vast wealth. Extreme leverage is a George Soros character trait. Most readers of the financial pages know about the spectacularly leveraged coup that earned him a billion dollars overnight in a giant gamble in 1992: He bet $10 billion—most of it borrowed money—that by selling enough sterling short he could force the Bank of England to devalue the British pound and make a killing.

Soros, with a keen grasp of money and politics, had calculated that bankers in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (EERM), pegged to the German mark, would refuse to uphold the overvalued pound because at the time Germany had its own problems paying for reunification. They did refuse, so Britain pulled out of the EERM and tried to prop up its sinking currency by itself. Prime Minister John Major and Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont spent billions of the government’s foreign reserves buying back pounds, trying desperately to shore up the value of sterling in the face of the daunting speculative tsunami that Soros started.

They ran out of foreign reserves. The pound crashed. On a day known thereafter as Black Wednesday, September 16, 1992, British subjects woke up to find their money worth about 20 percent less than the day before when compared to American dollars, German marks or even French francs. Soros’ daring short position paid off—big.
Had he lost that bet, nobody would know his name today.

Almost nobody outside the financial markets knew his name then, or how he got the clout to pull it off, but the investment world knew it very well. In 1967, George Soros had been an arbitrage trader at a small New York City investment bank—just another drone—when he talked his employers into letting him start an offshore fund called First Eagle, long positions only, with $250,000 of his own money and $6 million of other peoples’. It went well, and two years later he launched Double Eagle, a hedge fund that would later become the Quantum Fund. He was 39.

His hedge fund was registered in Curaçao in the Netherlands Antilles, a Caribbean tax haven beyond U.S. regulation. All of its investors were also beyond U.S. regulation: very rich non-U.S. citizens, mostly European. Soros, who stayed in New York, was only its "investment advisor" collecting a management fee and a 15% incentive fee.
Like most hedge funds, Quantum specialized in high risk, short term speculation on stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies, stock options and derivatives, taking long and short positions and large leveraged positions. Soros took huge risks, spending mostly borrowed money and selling stocks the fund did not yet own. His success was astonishing: throughout the dismal bear markets of the 1970s, when most investors lost money, Quantum was profitable every year, sometimes paying double-digit returns.
In 1981, Institutional Investor magazine put him on the cover as "the world’s greatest money manager."

The name of his fund came from quantum physics, especially the indeterminacy principle of Werner Heisenberg. Soros liked "Quantum" as a symbol of the impossibility of accurately determining the future movement of markets as well as subatomic particles. He had developed his own theory that individual biases (e.g., the trend-following habits of speculators) introduce disequilibrium into an economy, so conventional "efficient market" theory doesn’t work. Soros extends his theory to just about everything, giving it the clunky name "reflexivity."

In finance, he uses it to explain "boom-bust cycles." He goes further, arguing that when any social enterprise begins to rise, whether a market, a business, a movement, or a nation, the biases of individuals (investors, executives, movement leaders, or statesmen) create instability. They build a bandwagon effect, overvaluing or overreaching, which creates an artificial "bubble" that eventually bursts.
Soros has attributed his hedge fund success—including the Bank of England episode—to his reflexivity theory. Others call it luck.

But there were thorns in the hedge: critics called him a "bandit" for his Southeast Asian currency raids. Others accused him of calculated hit-and-run tactics: quietly buying into a market—gold, for example, as he did in 1993—deliberately leaking his "secret," watching the bandwagon stampede drive the price up, then bailing out before the bubble bursts.

Quantum had only one losing year in its first two decades and George Soros got very rich. Even though he failed to predict the stock market crash of ’87 and took a $300 million hit, Quantum was actually up 14 percent for the calendar year—and his personal compensation of $75 million made him the second-highest-paid man on Wall Street.
1993, it earned him $1.1 billion. George Soros was the top earner on Wall Street, making more than the gross national product of 42 nations. He was no longer just a drone on the cusp of fame.

The money brought access and influence through his charities. From then on, he mixed with chiefs of state as if he were one of them. He even leveraged heads of state: in that same year he told a packed press conference in Romania that he had snubbed an invitation from the country’s president, Ion Iliescu, "for lack of time." He raced to the airport where his rented jet took him to the next country. He dined with the heads of Moldova and Bulgaria in a single day and told his travel companion, journalist Michael Lewis: "You see, I have one president for breakfast and another for dinner."

With tongue only slightly in cheek, he told Lewis of the influence his philanthropy had bought him in the former Soviet Union, "The Soviet Empire is now known as the Soros Empire." Yet this same man was known to have his chauffeur wait at the curb in Washington while he dashed in to the National Gallery of Art to admire a Vermeer, then get to the next appointment right on time.

- from Freezing in the Dark: Money, Power, Politics and
The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy by Ron Arnold

George Soros's relationships are mapped on Muckety.

Soros playing God with public policy:
Criminal Justice: Soros personally believes that the American criminal justice system is racist, and that prison is an inappropriate punishment for most lawbreakers. For example: (a) OSI has established a “U.S. Justice Fund” to “diminish the role of prisons ... and to pave the way for the creation of a larger system of public health and social supports.” (b) In a related measure, the Institute created an “After Prison Initiative” focusing on “supporting the successful reentry of prisoners to their communities.” (c) OSI helps finance the Sentencing Project, which claims that prison sentencing patterns are racially discriminatory, and advocates in favor of granting voting rights to convicted felons. (d) OSI funds the Southern Center for Human Rights, which recruits lawyers to represent death row inmates and aims to reduce America’s alleged over-reliance on incarceration. (e) The Institute supports Critical Resistance, a program that impugns the “Prison Industrial Complex” for fostering the delusion that “caging and controlling people makes us safe.”

Open Society Institute
Officers, Trustees, Foundation Managers 2006

Name	Title	Compensation
GEORGE SOROS	Trustee Chair	$0
RICARDO CASTRO	General Counsel Secretary	$200,358
GEOFFREY CANADA	Trustee	$0
LEON BOTSTEIN	Trustee	$0
STEWART PAPERIN	Treasurer Executive Vice President	$230,000
JONATHAN SOROS	Trustee	$0
STEPHEN D GUTMANN	Assistant Treasurer Secretary	$154,485
JOAN B DUNLOP	Trustee	$12,103
DAVID J ROTHMAN	Trustee	$800
JOHN G SIMON	Trustee	$0
PHILIP LAMARCHE	Vice President /Director US Programs	$225,000
HERBERT STURZ	Trustee	$187,047
MADA ARBOLINO	Chief Financial Officer	$195,844
ARYEH NEIER	President CEO Trustee	$375,019
LANI GUINIER	Trustee	$0
THOMAS M SCANLON JR	Trustee	$0

Five Highest Paid Employees 2006

Name	Title	Compensation
YALAN TENG	Chief Information Officer	$193,559
JAMES GOLDSTON	Director-Open Society Justice Initiative	$187,220
STEPHANIE BEHRENS	Director of HR	$185,000
ROBERT KUSHEN	Director International Operations	$180,000
STEPHEN RICKARD	Director - OSI DC	$179,921

Open Society Institute Sample Grants

Grant Total:

Number of Grants:

Recipient Name	Amount	Year	Grant Description
DUCKS UNLIMITED Memphis Tennessee	$4,500	2006
INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE New York New York	$9,630	2006	To purchase computer equipment for the group of refuges from Andijan Uzbekistan
INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE New York New York	$25,000	2006	To provide general support
NEW SCHOOL UNIVERSITY New York New York	$35,000	2006	To host a two day public conference on crime and punishment in the United States
YALE UNIVERSITY New Haven Connecticut	$21,051	2006
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY New York New York	$6,450	2006
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY New York New York	$450,130	2006	To support the symposium entitled Hannah arendt right new
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY Baltimore Maryland	$25,000	2006	To institute summer learning program for all Baltimore city Public School system student
BELL FOUNDATION Dorchester Massachusetts	$75,000	2006	To support the launch of its summer program for students in Baltimore city Public schools
UNITED WAY OF NEW YORK CITY New York New York	$20,000	2006	To support the symposium nexus between concern trated poverty ty incarceration re-entry and employment
FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS Washington Dist Of Columbia	$25,000	2006	To support the project on government secretary
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH New York New York	$9,000	2006
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH New York New York	$50,000	2006	To support the US Programs criminal justice work
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH New York New York	$100,000	2006	To support work on the human rights implication of domestic anti terrorism measures
GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT Washington Dist Of Columbia	$100,000	2006	To support the science and engineering whistleblower campaign
NEW ISRAEL FUND Washington Dist Of Columbia	$9,000	2006
NEW ISRAEL FUND Washington Dist Of Columbia	$9,000	2006
EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT CENTER Newton Massachusetts	$200,000	2006	To Launch a youth media learning network
SUNDANCE INSTITUTE Beverly Hills California	$75,000	2006	To support the re design and expansion of the Sundance documentary about the W Wrongful conviction and exoneration of Darry hunt
PROTEUS FUND Amherst Massachusetts	$200,000	2006	To support a donor collaborative for Collaborative grantmaking in the Media policy arena
PROTEUS FUND Amherst Massachusetts	$250,000	2006	To provide funding for the civil marriage collaborative fund
UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS Cambridge Massachusetts	$200,000	2006	To provide project support for the scientific integrity program
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Cambridge Massachusetts	$46,021	2006	To support a project entitled pubic education on the human costs of the war in Iraq
PHYSICIANS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS Boston Massachusetts	$50,000	2006	To support medical evaluations for individuals who have been detained by the United States
ALLIANCE FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE FOR CHIAPAS MEDIA PROJECT Washington Dist Of Columbia	$50,000	2006	To support the United students against sweat ships leadership development program
HEIFER PROJECT INTERNATIONAL Little Rock Arkansas	$7,019	2006
NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR WOMEN AND FAMILIES Washington Dist Of Columbia	$225,000	2006	To provide general support
AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE Washington Dist Of Columbia	$250,000	2006	General support
UNITED STATES STUDENT ASSOCIATION Washington Dist Of Columbia	$59,000	2006	General support
UNITED STATES STUDENT ASSOCIATION Washington Dist Of Columbia	$300,000	2006	To support training materials & networking opportunities for state-wide student association
MS FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN New York New York	$6,825	2006
URBAN JUSTICE CENTER New York New York	$46,000	2006	To line the debate on sex work & trafficking to a struggle for sexual and economic rights
EARTH ISLAND INSTITUTE San Francisco California	$300,000	2006	To support the campus climate challenge
CENTER ON BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES Washington Dist Of Columbia	$750,000	2006	General support
PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA New York New York	$200,000	2006	To support an organization campaign around the federal judiciary
AMERICAN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA LEAGUE New York New York	$15,000	2006
HOWARD UNIVERSITY Washington Dist Of Columbia	$5,000	2006	To provide general support the national African American Drug Policy coalition
SYNERGOS INSTITUTE New York New York	$10,000	2006	To provide general support
EARTHJUSTICE Oakland California	$150,000	2006	To support the judging the environment project
HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN Washington Dist Of Columbia	$150,000	2006	To support the Federal Judiciary public education project
WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE Washington Dist Of Columbia	$100,000	2006	To support the Chief Executive Director climate change initiative
CENTER FOR COMMUNITY CHANGE Washington Dist Of Columbia	$25,000	2006	To support the fair immigration reform movement citizenship schools project
CENTER FOR COMMUNITY CHANGE Washington Dist Of Columbia	$100,000	2006	To support comprehensive immigration reform related action coalition building and media outreach
CENTER FOR COMMUNITY CHANGE Washington Dist Of Columbia	$100,000	2006	To develop the optimal management structure for the generation change leadership initiative
CENTER FOR COMMUNITY CHANGE Washington Dist Of Columbia	$100,000	2006	To support the no more circus tents project
CENTER FOR COMMUNITY CHANGE Washington Dist Of Columbia	$300,000	2006	To support the fair immigration reform movement network
CENTER FOR COMMUNITY CHANGE Washington Dist Of Columbia	$300,000	2006	To support the Community voting project
GEORGETOWN DAY SCHOOL Washington Dist Of Columbia	$30,000	2006
GEORGETOWN DAY SCHOOL Washington Dist Of Columbia	$25,000	2006
MARET SCHOOL Washington Dist Of Columbia	$7,500	2006
AMERICAN SCANDINAVIAN FOUNDATION New York New York	$5,000	2006	General support
NEW WORLD FOUNDATION New York New York	$10,000	2006	To support the social justice infrastructure funders project
NEW WORLD FOUNDATION New York New York	$20,000	2006	To support an intergenerational convening of activists of color and their ensuring campaign
NEW WORLD FOUNDATION New York New York	$50,000	2006	To support the Alston Bennerman Fellowship Program
CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH Boston Massachusetts	$100,000	2006	To support the student empowerment training state student association organization project
SOUTHERN CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS Atlanta Georgia	$7,500	2006
SOUTHERN CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS Atlanta Georgia	$250,000	2006	General support
EQUAL JUSTICE WORKS Washington Dist Of Columbia	$750,000	2006
EQUAL JUSTICE WORKS Washington Dist Of Columbia	$875,000	2006	To support the class of 2005 fellowships
FREEDOM FROM HUNGER Davis California	$6,906	2006
SHELTER OUR SISTERS Hackensack New Jersey	$7,011	2006	To provide additional support to study at Assumption University
ATLANTIC COUNCIL OF THE UNITED STATES Washington Dist Of Columbia	$16,000	2006	To develop areas of potential transatlantic cooperation
ASPEN INSTITUTE Washington Dist Of Columbia	$195,000	2006	To rethink the dominant perspectives on Crime and Punishment in the US
ASSOCIATION OF BALTIMORE AREA GRANTMAKERS Baltimore Maryland	$5,500	2006	General support
ASSOCIATION OF BALTIMORE AREA GRANTMAKERS Baltimore Maryland	$10,000	2006	To provide staff support for the education funders affinity group
GODS LOVE WE DELIVER New York New York	$5,000	2006	General support
NATION INSTITUTE New York New York	$10,000	2006	To provide general support
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY Bronx New York	$14,500	2006	To support rethinking judicial selection
NEW YORK LAWYERS FOR THE PUBLIC INTEREST New York New York	$215,700	2006	To provide renewal support for the national campaign to restore civil rights
NEW YORK LAWYERS FOR THE PUBLIC INTEREST New York New York	$12,000	2006	To provide add on support for the national campaign to restore civil rights
RESEARCH FOUNDATION OF THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK New York New York	$200,000	2006	To support the creation of the center on the Media crime and justice
FIDELITY INVESTMENT CHARITABLE GIFT FUND Boston Massachusetts	$44,250	2006
ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE Washington Dist Of Columbia	$400,000	2006	To provide general support
FOUNDATION CENTER New York New York	$20,000	2006	To provide general support
FOUNDATION CENTER New York New York	$20,000	2006	To provide general support
CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES Washington Dist Of Columbia	$15,000	2006	To support a Libyan delegation to discuses political and economic issues
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY WOMEN AAUW Washington Dist Of Columbia	$150,000	2006	To craft a policy statement to college and University regarding inviting outside speakers
ALLIANCE FOR JUSTICE Washington Dist Of Columbia	$100,000	2006	To provide support for a lecture series in honor of professor Herman Schwartz
ASSOCIATION FOR CHILDREN OF NEW JERSEY Newark New Jersey	$50,000	2006	To renew support for participation in the state fiscal analysis initiative
ASSOCIATION FOR CHILDREN OF NEW JERSEY Newark New Jersey	$50,000	2006	To renew support for participation in the state fiscal analysis initiative
ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES Washington Dist Of Columbia	$11,100	2006
CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE Washington Dist Of Columbia	$9,800	2006	To support Georgian Ossetia civic dialogue
CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE Washington Dist Of Columbia	$16,850	2006	To support the think tank network on alternative solution stop the transnistria conflict
CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE Washington Dist Of Columbia	$124,038	2006	To support the East partnership beyond borders program at Carnegie Moscow center
CENTER FOR JUSTICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY San Francisco California	$7,500	2006
CENTER FOR JUSTICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY San Francisco California	$9,000	2006
CENTER FOR LAW AND SOCIAL POLICY Washington Dist Of Columbia	$7,500	2006
COOPERATIVE FOR ASSISTANCE AND RELIEF EVERYWHERE CARE Atlanta Georgia	$7,500	2006
CORPORATION FOR SUPPORTIVE HOUSING New York New York	$100,000	2006	To create re entry supportive housing
ENVIRONMENTAL LAW INSTITUTE Washington Dist Of Columbia	$150,000	2006	To provide support for the endangered environmental Law project
INDEPENDENT MEDIA INSTITUTE San Francisco California	$40,000	2006	To support sire tap magazine
INDEPENDENT MEDIA INSTITUTE San Francisco California	$100,000	2006	General support
INTER FAITH EDUCATION FUND Austin Texas	$250,000	2006	To increase civic participation
LOWER EAST SIDE TENEMENT MUSEUM New York New York	$4,750	2006	To enable South Africa Constitutional Court to Commission works form artists
MANAGEMENT ASSISTANCE GROUP Washington Dist Of Columbia	$50,000	2006	To advance technical assistance efforts to leading national advocacy organization
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE Washington Dist Of Columbia	$21,300	2006	To support the migration learning Community
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA Washington Dist Of Columbia	$100,000	2006	To support the we are America Alliance
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA Washington Dist Of Columbia	$300,000	2006	To support the immigration unit and the immigrants rights project
NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR RESPONSIVE PHILANTHROPY Washington Dist Of Columbia	$25,000	2006	To build organization

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