About the Open Society Foundations
The Open Society Foundations work to build vibrant and tolerant societies whose governments are accountable and open to the participation of all people. Working in every part of the world, the Open Society Foundations place a high priority on protecting and improving the lives of people in marginalised communities.
Open Society does more than give away money. We use a range of tools including advocacy, litigation, and research to help support open societies around the world.
Open Society was founded by George Soros, who began his philanthropy in 1979 by giving scholarships to black South African students during Apartheid.
Open Society established its first country foundation in Hungary in 1984, and throughout 1980s and 1990s, focused on countries in the Soviet Bloc making the transition to democracy.
Open Society expanded its reach globally during the 1990s, and now we work in over 100 countries in every region of the world including in South Africa since 1993.
About the Omidyar Network (ON)
Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm dedicated to harnessing the power of markets to create opportunity for people to improve their lives. Established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, the organization invests in and helps scale innovative organizations to catalyze economic and social change. Omidyar Network has committed more than $1 billion to for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations that foster economic advancement and encourage individual participation across multiple initiatives, including Education, Emerging Tech, Financial Inclusion, Governance & Citizen Engagement, and Property Rights.
Omidyar Network has been actively funding independent media, investigative journalism, and fact-checking around the world for the last decade. In April 2017 it committed a further $100m of funding, to be deployed over the next three years, to continue to strengthen independent media and investigative journalism, tackle misinformation and hate speech, and enable citizens to better engage with government on critical issues.
To learn more, visit www.omidyar.com, and follow on Twitter @omidyarnetwork #Positive Returns.
