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Foundation: Open Society Foundations

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George Soros has donated $100 million to create a new unit of his Open Society Foundations that aims to "roam the ideological spectrum in search of ideas that challenge conventional wisdom, on the assumption that only by critically examining our beliefs can we sharpen them and move forward toward a better world," the New York Times reports.

The Education and Ideas Collaborative, a new unit of the Open Society Foundations, was born out of a critique of "the dominant trends in philanthropy these days," Open Society Executive Vice President Leonard Benardo tells the Times.

"When one mixes it up in the world of ideas, culture, and education, one must be committed to a longer time frame, and not one that will be expressed through short-term 'wins.' There is nothing wrong with impact and measurement, per se.

But when they are deployed at the expense of meaning and understanding, something fundamental, we believe, is lost."

The group plans to support people, projects, magazines, cultural festivals, and so forth that "push the envelope of thinking in these various areas," Benardo tells the Times.

Among them: After Neoliberalism, Open Society in the Anthropocene, Recasting Global Politics, and Understanding the Right.

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