At 92 years of age, George Soros has transferred control of his global operation to his son Alex Soros.
Reports indicate that the 37-year-old is far more radical than his father and has promised to broaden the scope of the Open Society Foundations (OSF) to encompass issues such as voting rights, abortion rights, and gender equality.
The OSF has made a significant shift in operations as they prepare for staff cuts of up to 40%.
Internal emails viewed by Bloomberg revealed plans to close six offices on the African continent along with locations in Baltimore and Barcelona.
Additionally, Inside Philanthropy reported that over a dozen offices spread across Africa and Asia were removed from their website.
The massive $25 billion organization has been known for funding left-wing causes around the world, but it appears they are making an effort to change direction.
Binaifer Nowrojee, OSF’s vice president of programs stated that “staffing size and footprint by necessity needs to diminish” due to board decisions regarding layoffs.
This will involve shuttering offices located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Kampala, Uganda; Cape Town, South Africa; Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo; Abuja Nigeria; Freetown Sierra Leone; while maintaining limited operations in Nairobi Kenya, Dakar Senegal and Johannesburg South Africa.
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An OSF spokesperson declined to comment on specific numbers until labor “negotiations are completed.”
The charity, which operates on five continents, will also use a new “opportunity” model of operations, though which opportunities they’ll focus on is unclear. Employees affected by the cuts in Africa are invited to apply to roles “within their jurisdiction,” according to the email from Nowrojee. “You would be expected to move and would also be responsible for your own relocation,” Wanyeki wrote.
In August, OSF sent grantees a note saying it “will largely terminate funding within the European Union, and further funding will be extremely limited.”
At a conference in Austria later that month, Alex Soros challenged reports that this represented a scaling back of the nonprofit’s work on the continent.
“It’s news to me that OSF is leaving Europe,” he said. “It was reported in various outlets that that’s the case but we’re simply changing our strategy.”
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