To Russia, With Hope

George Soros plans to donate up to $500-million to support a range of programs intended to promote a more open society

Last week’s announcement by George Soros that he plans to spend $300-million to $500-million on philanthropic ventures in Russia during the next three years shows he has not lost confidence in his ability to help change that society.

The billionaire financier and philanthropist is planning a broad array of support for areas ranging from education and cultural programs to health care and local government, at a time when he has expressed frustration with developments in Russia. Politicians who oppose Mr. Soros’s attempts to promote a more open and democratic society have gained new political clout, and a class of freewheeling — and often corrupt — entrepreneurs whom Mr. Soros labels “robber capitalists” has been growing rapidly.

The aggregate amount of his latest gift may exceed the estimated $350-million he has already spent on charitable programs in Russia during the past decade. His support surpasses that of the U.S. government, which gave Russia $95-million last year.

His decision follows another recent major international commitment by an American philanthropist: Ted Turner’s promise to provide $1-billion to the United Nations during the next decade.

Despite the size of Mr. Soros’s pledge, he plans to maintain current levels of support for the network of foundations and cultural and educational institutions he has established in 30 other countries, including the United States, said a spokesman at the Open Society Institute in New York, which serves as the headquarters of his philanthropic empire.

Rather than establish a single centralized foundation, Mr. Soros’s practice has been to set up foundations in each of the countries to which he gives, under the control of a local board and staff. Much of the estimated $1.5-billion he has spent already to establish and support that network has gone to help countries in the former Soviet bloc make the transition to non-totalitarian regimes.

Mr. Soros’s announcement followed a two-week tour of Russia in which he evaluated programs now financed by his foundations and identified opportunities for new philanthropic ventures. The grant-making programs will be run by the Open Society Institute-Russia, which is based in Moscow.

The new round of donations is intended to meet pressing social needs that are beyond the resources of Russia’s cash-strapped government.

“An open society requires a democratic and well-functioning government, as well as a strong civil society and an independent business community,” Mr. Soros said at a news conference in Moscow. “The state is unable to meet its social obligations, and many vital needs remain unfulfilled. We must confine our interventions to those areas where we can help to mobilize existing resources in a more efficient way.”

Details of the programs are still being worked out. But Mr. Soros identified several areas to which he will direct his giving:

Education. Mr. Soros hopes to expand his current programs that publish textbooks and that train schoolteachers and principals in pedagogical styles that are less rigid and authoritarian than those commonly used in Russian schoolrooms. This will continue to be his philanthropy’s primary field of activity — particularly in the areas of mathematics and science.

Public health. Programs will focus on improving the health of mothers and children and on stemming the spread of tuberculosis in Russian prisons and drug-resistant bacteria in its hospitals. Others will help train medical professionals, and increase the availability of Russian-language medical information.

Culture. While providing continued support for cultural institutions, the program will add management training for their leaders.

Publishing. Support for libraries and cultural publications will continue, with the foundation underwriting much of the cost of subscriptions by libraries, schools, and universities.

Internet. A $100-million program to make the Internet more accessible to Russian scholars and citizens started last year in cooperation with the Russian government and will be expanded.

Military demobilization. A new program will offer management training to prepare soldiers for civilian jobs. President Boris Yeltsin has said he plans to shrink the Russian military by one-third.

Law and government. Programs to promote new legal structures and to strengthen local governments will be expanded.

Mr. Soros’s philanthropy in Russia has had a bumpy ride. Its first institutional incarnation, the Cultural Initiative Foundation, was taken over first by a clique of Communist Youth League officials, then by a Russian lawyer, and finally by sticky-fingered administrators, Mr. Soros recalls in his 1995 book, Soros on Soros.

“With three reorganizations, we lost five valuable years,” Mr. Soros writes. “I learned from bitter experience how difficult it is to run a foundation in a revolutionary environment.”

Other programs have been more successful. From 1993 to 1995, for example, Mr. Soros spent $100-million on small grants to 30,000 Russian scientists who had lost their government jobs. The program enabled many scientists to keep working productively in Russia, rather than emigrating or abandoning their research.

Mr. Soros’s company, Soros Fund Management, is still a principal adviser to the Quantum Group of Funds, from which he built a fortune reported to be worth more than $3.5-billion. And whereas he once scrupulously avoided making investments in countries where he was giving away money, he has since abandoned that practice.

His fund has invested some $2.5-billion in Russian enterprises, including a giant telecommunications company. Those investments have drawn fire from Russian critics who say he should not be mixing business and philanthropy.

But in his book, Mr. Soros writes that the risk of any conflicts arising between his business and philanthropic spheres has diminished as his foundations have become stronger. And wearing his businessman’s hat makes him more believable to Russians, he says.

“In today’s Russia, people are so caught up in the fight for survival that the pursuit of an abstract good like open society seems hardly credible,” he writes. “It seemed to me that to appear as a robber capitalist who is concerned with cultural and political values was more credible than to be a disembodied intellect arguing for the merits of open society. I could serve as a role model for the budding robber capitalists of Russia.”

Julianne Basinger contributed to this article.