Media outlets began circulating news this week that the United States had been added to a “global human rights watchlist” due to President Donald Trump’s policies. What the outlets failed to report, however, is that the group responsible for publishing the watchlist takes millions of dollars from many of Trump’s political adversaries, including the Soros philanthropic network.
CIVICUS, a South Africa-based nonprofit organization that exists to “strengthen civil society,” added the U.S. to its human rights “monitor watchlist” on Monday. The group defended its decision by arguing that the Trump administration was engaged in an “assault on democratic norms and global cooperation” after it “slashed federal funding for organizations supporting people most in need, dismantled USAID, and reversed progress on justice, inclusion, and diversity.” Media outlets, including Time, the Hill, the Guardian, Newsweek, and the Independent, all jumped on CIVICUS’s report to pump out stories implying that human rights in the U.S. were comparable to Pakistan or the Democratic Republic of Congo, both of which are also on the list.
None of these outlets, however, mentioned that CIVICUS is funded by an array of liberal donors.
The Open Society Institute and the Foundation To Promote Open Society, for instance, gave $1.8 million to the group between 2020 and 2023, according to tax filings. Both of those organizations are part of a network of nonprofit groups funded and controlled by the Soros family. The Soros family has long played a key role in financing both the Democratic Party and the broader progressive movement.
Democracy PAC, run by George Soros’s son, Alex, spent $67.5 million during the 2024 election cycle working to elect Democrats to Congress and the White House. George and Alex Soros personally donated millions of dollars to fund former President Joe Biden’s and former Vice President Kamala Harris’s failed presidential bids. Direct political spending aside, Soros’s nongovernmental organization empire also serves as a vital financial lifeline to nonprofit groups working to oppose the Trump administration’s agenda through coordinated protests, public messaging campaigns, and lawfare.
Rhetoric employed by CIVICUS largely mirrors that of the individuals and organizations funding it.
“The Trump Administration seems hellbent on dismantling the system of checks and balances which are the pillars of a democratic society,” interim CIVICUS co-Secretary General Mandeep Tiwana said in a press release. “Restrictive Executive Orders, unjustifiable institutional cutbacks, and intimidation tactics through threatening pronouncements by senior officials in the Administration are creating an atmosphere to chill democratic dissent, a cherished American ideal.”
Bill Gates is another major Democratic donor who has pumped considerable funding into CIVICUS, with tax forms showing that his charitable foundation contributed roughly $1.5 million to the group in 2018. Gates’s political bent is clear, as the Microsoft co-founder donated $50 million to support the Harris campaign during the 2024 election, according to the New York Times. The Gates Foundation has also long provided financial support to left-of-center groups such as Planned Parenthood.
After receiving funding from Soros and Gates, CIVICUS put out a report in 2021 praising the U.S. for electing Harris as the nation’s first female vice president.
“At the year’s end, the USA elected its first-ever female vice-president, Kamala Harris, who was also the first African-American and Asian-American to hold the office,” the report reads. “This happened in no small part in reaction to an outgoing administration that had become the paradigmatic example of toxic macho leadership.”
CIVICUS’s affinity for Harris comes as one of the organization’s top funders is run by allies of the former vice president.
The Ford Foundation poured roughly $8.3 million into CIVICUS between 2020 and 2023, according to tax documents.
Darren Walker, the foundation’s president, has a long history of hobnobbing with Harris. Walker met Harris one-on-one in April 2021, attended an event at the then-vice president’s private residence in October 2022, and, in fall 2023, dined privately with Harris and her husband, according to White House visitor logs and media reports.
Beyond socializing, Walker and Harris collaborated frequently through public-private partnerships. The Ford Foundation collaborated with the Biden-Harris administration on artificial intelligence initiatives, community violence prevention, economic development, and in distributing tens of millions of dollars for technology programs.
Laurene Powell Jobs, a Democratic megadonor and close friend of Harris, sits on the Ford Foundation’s board of trustees. The New York Times described the relationship between the two as a “genuine friendship built on a shared political philosophy, an interest in art and culture and their mutual trials as women in the public spotlight.”
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In addition to being led by left-of-center individuals, the Ford Foundation is also a major funder of liberal activist and political organizations. In recent years, the foundation has pumped tens of millions of dollars into left-of-center think tanks such as the Center for American Progress and New America, legal advocacy groups that often challenge conservative politicians, abortion-rights organizations, and groups linked to mass protests, among other liberal causes.
CIVICUS did not respond to a request for comment.
