About the Open Society Foundation for South Africa
The Open Society Foundation for South Africa (OSF-SA) is part of the Open Society Foundations. The work of OSF-SA focuses on South Africa and the office is based in Cape Town. The Open Society Foundations’ work in the Southern Africa region (excluding South Africa) is carried out by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) which is based in Johannesburg.
Open Society Foundations was founded by George Soros, who began his philanthropy in 1979 by giving scholarships to black South African students during Apartheid.
OSF-SA works through a unique combination of both grant-making and advocacy. This is supported by strategic research, demonstration projects, convening on niche issues, and knowledge exchange with network and local partners. OSF-SA’s work is supported by two grant-making programmes and a Research and Advocacy Unit.
In seeking to promote these principles, OSF-SA is guided by the values contained in the South African Constitution of human dignity and non-discrimination, and seeks the achievement of substantive equality and the advancement of human rights. OSF-SA is committed to promoting the values, institutions, and practices of an open, non-racial and non-sexist, democratic civil society. It works for a vigorous and autonomous civil society in which the rule of law and divergent opinions are respected.
About Luminate
Established in 2018, Luminate is a global philanthropic organisation with the goal of empowering people and institutions to work together to build just and fair societies. Luminate does this by funding and supporting non-profit and for-profit organisations and advocating for policies and actions that will help people participate in and shape the issues affecting their lives, and make those in power more transparent, responsive, and accountable.
Luminate prioritises delivering impact in four connected areas that underpin strong societies: Civic Empowerment, Data & Digital Rights, Financial Transparency, and Independent Media. Across all these areas, Luminate’s strategy is long-term yet responsive. This allows Luminate to focus on supporting those driving sustainable solutions to deeply entrenched issues – while remaining flexible enough to react quickly to evolving challenges.
Luminate builds on a portfolio and wealth of expertise built up over a decade as the Governance & Citizen Engagement initiative at Omidyar Network. Established by Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, we remain part of The Omidyar Group. To date, Luminate’s global work has supported 236 organisations, in 18 countries with over $314 million in funding.
To learn more, visit www.luminategroup.com, and follow on Twitter @luminategroup
