The Open Society Foundation-U.S.’s Soros Equality Fellowship seeks to support emerging midcareer professionals whom they believe will become long-term innovative leaders impacting racial justice.

The Soros Equality Fellowship seeks to support individual leaders influencing and transforming the racial justice field. The Foundation understand the unique role an individual can play in rejecting old paradigms and presenting a new vision for the United States they hope to become.

The aim of the Fellowship is to be flexible and open—a space to incubate new ideas, promote risk-taking, and develop different ways of thinking that challenge and expand the existing assumptions. A successful project should identify a challenge and propose a critical intervention that will meaningfully address the systems that reinforce inequities and discrimination in the United States.

Through this Fellowship, Open Society aims to provide a network of leaders, representing the diversity of experiences, with the resources to address racial inequality and the space they need to imagine a more equitable future.

Fellowship Grant

Fellows will typically receive a $100,000 grant over the 18 month fellowship to support expenses related to the project. These award amounts are all-inclusive are are intended to cover a fellow’s living expenses, project-related expenses, travel, conference fees, health insurance, etc. They do not provide additional funds beyond the fellowship award. Over the course of the fellowship, there may be additional OSF-sponsored conferences, gathering, or events.

Eligibility Criteria

• Fellowship Term and Time Commitment: Applicants must be able to devote at least 35 hours per week to the project if awarded a Fellowship; and the project must be the applicant’s only full-time work during the course of the Fellowship.
• Projects Based Outside the United States: Applicants may be based outside the United States, provided their work directly pertains to a U.S. racial justice issue and is able to demonstrate a proficiency in spoken and written English.
• Joint Applications: Up to two individuals can apply jointly for a Soros Equality Fellowship. However, joint applications will share one fellowship award. A joint application should be completed together as a single submission. For joint applicants, the “full-time work” requirement does not apply to each applicant. All other restrictions associated with an individual application still apply.

For more information, visit Open Society Foundations.