Leftist billionaire George Soros’ family organization is slashing its workforce in a major restructuring effort.
Soros’ Open Society Foundation (OSF) is undergoing its second restructuring in just three years.
The latest effort will result in the total worldwide staff being cut by nearly half.
The globalist organization’s board of directors had decided over the summer to cut employees and close offices around the world, according to emails obtained by Bloomberg.
“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,” OSF Vice President of Programs Binaifer Nowrojee wrote in one of the emails seen by the outlet.
“We no longer have the bandwidth to operate multiple small offices, and thus the decision to further reduce our locations,” Nowrojee added.
After the latest cuts, OSF’s staff will be fewer than 500.
The organization employed nearly 1,700 people as recently as 2021.
Bloomberg listed six OSF offices in Africa that would be left with no employees and would close by the end of the year.
The outlet notes that Inside Philanthropy had reported that “more than a dozen offices across Africa and Asia” had been removed from a list on the organization’s website.
In July, Inside Philanthropy reported that the OSF would lay off “at least 40%” of its staff.
Offices in Barcelona and in Baltimore were also being shuttered, Bloomberg reported.
Africa Executive Director Muthoni Wanyeki told staff in an email, “I’m very sorry that it’s turned out this way. …
“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.”
In what may have been a bitter note, Wanyeki noted that the cuts ran contrary to what the organization’s leadership had “committed to two years ago.”
The OSF has offered grants in excess of $1 billion each year, Bloomberg said.
Roughly 10 percent of that money goes to Africa.
OSF President Mark Malloch-Brown said in an interview last month that many of the cuts had to do with a greater focus on assessing the impacts those grants make.
He claims the cuts are not down to robust “due diligence” on the front end prior to deciding which grants to make.
Measuring impacts is expected to require less personnel, he said, and the restructuring was aimed at creating a more “nimble” OSF.
“The huge bureaucratic process preceded the grant and then it was much lighter thereafter,” Malloch-Brown explained.
“We’re reversing that balance.”
However, despite the global cuts, the OSF asserted that no changes to programs were expected to be made in the U.S. until after the critical 2024 presidential election.
In August, the organization had already announced that it would “largely terminate funding within the European Union, and further funding will be extremely limited,” Bloomberg reported.
George Soros’ son, Alex Soros, who was named as his father’s successor in June, disputed that idea, however.
“It’s news to me that OSF is leaving Europe,” he said at an August conference in Austria, Bloomberg reported.
“It was reported in various outlets that that’s the case but we’re simply changing our strategy.”
He later reiterated that position in a Politico Op-Ed dated August 31.
“So, as OSF retools the way it works globally, we are shifting our priorities in Europe accordingly,” he wrote.
“Yes, this means we will be exiting some areas of work as we focus on today’s challenges, as well as those we will face tomorrow.
“And yes, we will also be reducing our headcount significantly, seeking to ensure more money goes out to where it’s most needed.
“But this isn’t any kind of a retreat.”
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