Fellowship Advancement Fund

The Fellowship Advancement Fund seeks to deepen our investment in past Open Society–United States fellowship recipients by supporting their ongoing leadership, sustainability, and impact in movements and organizations across various fields.

The Fellowship Advancement Fund will support past recipients from any of the five current and past fellowship programs within Open Society–U.S. (Baltimore, Leadership in Government, Puerto Rico, Equality, and Justice).

Projects and activities under the fund are supported with grants ranging from $1,000 to $35,000 and can have a duration as short as a few days or as long as a year—depending on the nature of the request.  

Eligibility Criteria

The Fellowship Advancement Fund will support past fellowship recipients from the following Open Society-U.S. fellowship programs:

• Baltimore Community Fellowships
• Leadership in Government Fellowship
• Puerto Rico Youth Fellowship
• Soros Equality Fellowship
• Soros Justice Fellowships

Past recipients of Fellowship Advancement Fund support are eligible to apply again.

Targeted Support for Transitions and Development

At its core, the Fellowship Advancement Fund seeks to deepen our investment in past Open Society–U.S. fellowship recipients by supporting their ongoing leadership, sustainability, and impact in movements and organizations across various fields. However, whereas the first iteration of the fund in 2023 offered a relatively open-ended call for applications that allowed fellows to define in the broadest terms the kinds of support they might need, for this year’s fund, we’re taking a more targeted and focused approach. We’ve taken this approach after reflecting on our initial launch of the fund in 2023 and considering what we believe is the best use of the fund’s resources in the moment we’re in.

A Movement Recession

The broader context in which contemporary social and racial justice work takes place is an especially daunting one. The recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions and other institutionalized attacks on some of the core values and beliefs have tried to upend the aspiration of an inclusive, multiracial democracy. Additionally, dwindling resources in fields that had already been long-struggling for support; and widespread fatigue, burnout, and disillusionment among the people who are the lifeblood of movement work persists. Against this backdrop, there is a particular need for leaders to be in a position to mitigate or otherwise address some aspect of this complex dynamic and help advance the vision that they have for themselves and their work.

Accordingly, for this year’s Fellowship Advancement Fund, we will only accept applications that seek support in the following categories: Support for Transitions and Professional/Leadership Development.

Support for Transitions

Leadership transitions are inevitable. The sustainability of movements and organizations after the transitions is not. We will fund fellows who seek to transition away from their current organization or movement role. We will support requests to ensure that individuals are able to design a sustainable transition for themselves as well as their work. We will fund fellows in the midst of a transition as well as those who would like to plan ahead for their eventual departure. 

We will not support transitions into a new organization nor will this be an organizational support grant.   

Professional/Leadership Development

Fellows’ work can be at the expense of their mental health and well-being. We understand that post fellowship, alumni continue to have needs and confront challenges. We will support projects that support and promote an individual’s resilience, capacity, and sustainability. These projects can include personal or professional development projects. Moreover, given that while individuals are effective and can maneuver in spaces that organizations cannot, they also benefit from partnering with or convening others to amplify their work, messages, and power. Accordingly, the fund will support both individual and collective efforts (e.g., collaborations, convenings) to enhance an applicant’s resilience, capacity, and sustainability. 

Ineligibility Criteria

The Fund will not support the following requests:

• projects or activities that do not relate to the types of support listed above
• sabbaticals (i.e., purely “living” stipends)
• transitions into a new organization or movement
• projects containing partisan political activities on behalf of specific parties or individuals
• lobbying activities
• individuals acting solely on behalf of organizations
• enrollment for degree or non-degree study at academic institutions, including thesis or dissertation research
• requests from people currently undertaking Open Society–United States fellowships
  

Guidelines

Applications must be submitted online via the application portal, which can be accessed here.

Download Files

Download the complete guidelines and application.

Download the template.