Launched in 2008, the Democracy and Power Fund expands on OSI’s efforts to engage and mobilize youth, immigrants, and communities of color. It aims to build the collective power of individuals and organizations to develop and demand solutions that advance open society in the United States. It will do so by providing capacity-building support to organizations that engage critical constituencies, nurture new leaders, and generate innovative ideas and solutions that address threats to democracy.

The fund will replicate and strengthen effective models by providing multiyear, general-support grants to groups that:

• work on multiple issues of concern to OSI U.S. Programs (e.g., criminal justice, government transparency, structural racism, national security policy);
• collaborate frequently with other organizations, and build partnerships across communities, sectors, and issues;
• employ a long-term social change strategy that emphasizes policy reform, systems change, and shifting public debate;
• use a range of connected strategies to address specific open society threats, including engagement and mobilization of underrepresented constituencies, nurturing new leaders, generating and disseminating research, or developing new ideas.