ProgramsBuilt into the Strategic Opportunities Fund is the allowance for timely responses to unanticipated issues that pose a significant threat to democracy. Rapid Response grants will focus on policy-driven efforts on the state and national level that are connected to, and cut across, OSI issue areas and/or timely issues that require intentional measures to reclaim the public debate, as in the case of Social Security. These grants support the notion that open society is endangered because the most basic assumptions about democracy, about language, about the place of government and public values, about justice and rights, are under attack. Initiatives must demonstrate a need for action that is a priority in the field and support certain kinds of approaches to public policy. Important factors to be considered include: originality of approach, element of risk involved, potential impact on the issue/policy, ability to mobilize the public, forming of coalitions to support strategy, and availability of other funding.
Issues that have merited rapid response consideration include the post-9/11 backlash that created serious challenges to the nation’s civil liberties as well as to just immigration policy and fair treatment of immigrants. In 2005, the debate around privatization of Social Security accounts threatened the values of public responsibility for social welfare. There were profound issues of democracy here, as the methods being used to destroy the most successful government program ever created involved distortions and falsehoods. More recently, the devastation in the Gulf Region caused by Hurricane Katrina laid bare for millions in the United States and around the world the deep poverty and inequality that is this country’s continuing legacy of racism. OSI has drawn on its expertise and resources to help strengthen and rebuild civil society in the Gulf Region and promote a vision of government that puts the social and economic needs and interests of displaced people at the forefront.
