The Open Society Foundation, a $25 billion network of nonprofits founded by globalist philanthropist George Soros, is shuttering office spaces around the world and preparing to lay off up to 40% of its staff. This major cutback, primarily affecting employees of the OSF’s Africa operations, comes during a shift in the organization’s focus first announced earlier this year amid a change in leadership.
“With the decision by the board in June to cut the staff by more than 40%, our staffing size and footprint by necessity needs to diminish,” wrote Open Society Foundation VP of Programs Binaifer Nowrojee in an email obtained by Bloomberg last week. “We no longer have the bandwidth to operate multiple small offices, and thus the decision to further reduce our locations.”
The shutdown will result in the closure of half a dozen offices across Africa, including Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Kampala, Uganda; Cape Town, South Africa; Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Abuja, Nigeria; and Freetown, Sierra Leone. Offices in Nairobi, Kenya; Dakar, Senegal; and Johannesburg, South Africa will remain open.
“I’m very sorry that it’s turned out this way,” said Africa Executive Director Muthoni Wanyeki in a separate memo. “It’s obviously not what any of us expected and I’m also very sorry that I didn’t have the information on this earlier.”
Outside Africa, the OSF will also be shutting down operations in Barcelona, Spain, and Baltimore, Maryland, which was announced earlier this year. The African branches have been in “varying stages of transition to close or merge into one regional entity” since 2021, according to a foundation spokesperson.
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This upheaval comes amid a change in leadership at the OSF, which has resulted in a new operating model for the organization. As Valuetainment previously reported, 93-year-old billionaire George Soros announced in June that he will be stepping down as head of the foundation and allowing his son Alexander, 38, to take his place.
Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew who made his fortune in the United States after World War II, has spent decades promoting values of liberalism, democracy, and open borders. Since its creation in 1993, the Open Society Foundation has leveraged Soros’ multi-billion-dollar fortune to push for sweeping social change around the world—drawing considerable opposition in the process.
In August, it was announced that the OSF would also be restructuring its focus on the European Union, freeing up assets to be better used elsewhere. While details about these future plans are still unknown, Alexander Soros, who calls himself “more political” than his father, has promised that work within Europe and the United States will continue for the foreseeable future.
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