Str. Caderea Bastiliei nr. 33, Bucuresti
Political turmoil which change the face of Central and Eastern Europe around 1990 aroused the interest of businessman and philanthropist George Soros, who had been promoting the values and ideals of the open society and had already been interested in the transition process from a closed society to an open one for some quite some time.
"The reason why I carried on with the creation of Foundations was the collapse of the Soviet Regime which, at that time, I felt it was a revolutionary moment, when impossible things in normal times become possible. Most people were not ready, but I was ready, I had a goal, namely the open society, and I decided to follow this goal, using both the money I possess and my time and energy", stated George Soros, reliving those moments.
For Romania, George Soros' commitment concretized in the establishment of the Soros Foundation for an Open Society Association in 1990, with some 1,480,000 USD starting budget and with a clear mandate of developing programs which to promptly and efficiently fill the lack of civic initiatives and educational alternatives.
Between 1990 and 1994, the Foundation continued on this path, not only through internal programs which provided scholarships, but also through sustained cooperation with the Ministry of National Education in order to initiate schools' endowment with computers and to elaborate alternative manuals. All this period the Foundation focused on supporting education, civil society, culture, health policies and medical reform. The necessary budget for completing the objectives reached approximately 10,000,000 USD in 1994.
The years 1994-1995 brought a change to Foundation's strategy. Its main role became creating opportunities and opening paths, instead of entirely building them. The change in strategy brought along a change in the organization's structure and the necessity of more precise procedures and responsibilities for the Board, the administrative team and programs' juries. The main fields of activity continue to revolve around education, civil society, communication, culture and health.
Foundation's renewal process continues along with the changes within the Romanian society and leads to the birth of a new institution, the Open Society Foundation, in 1997. The Foundation, which kept the mission of supporting the advancement of an open society in Romania, focused on four prior domains: public administration, legislative and judiciary reform, education and public health.
The means through which the Foundation promoted the values of an open society and involves in changing the system and mentalities opposite to these values suffered new changes in the year 2000, as a response to the need of expertise concentrated on key domains of reform, as well as to the necessity of a new approach which to permit concentrated efforts on specific sectors of activity to interconnect and multiply, creating system effects. The transformation is profound. Step by step, the Open Society Foundation restructures the most important programs as independent organizations. Thirteen such organizations are born, consequently, which function as centers of expertise and public policies development, all united within a network: SON (Soros Open Network - Romania).
Creating SON is extremely significant in the context of the reduction of George Soros' financial commitment towards Central and Eastern Europe countries. "The path the Open Society Foundation - Romania took is that, when it became extremely efficient in certain fields of activity, to create autonomous organizations in these fields, which to partially finance. These institutions created by OSF will survive when my financing will decrease", George Soros said.
Beginning with 2002 and especially since 2003, the Foundation chose to intervene in the institutional reform and democratization process through advocacy activities, both directly and supporting other nongovernmental organizations in their public initiatives. In March 2007, The Open Society Foundation-Romania changed its name into Soros Foundation Romania.
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