The International Renaissance Foundation, a part of the Open Society Foundations, was established in Kyiv in April 1990. At the time, Ukraine was still part of the rapidly collapsing Soviet Union, placing the new foundation at the forefront of the effort by George Soros, the founder and chair of the Open Society Foundations, to use his fortune to assist the former Communist states of Central and Eastern Europe.

After Ukraine became fully independent in 1991, the new foundation gradually expanded its support for Ukraine’s often-painful transition to democracy and a market economy. The Open Society Foundations’ immediate focus in Ukraine and other former Communist states was modernization and reform of moribund national institutions, and support for emerging civil society groups.

By 1994, the International Renaissance Foundation was the biggest international donor in the country, with an annual budget of roughly $12 million for projects that ranged from retraining tens of thousands of decommissioned soldiers to the creation of a contemporary arts center in Kyiv. In the early 2000s, the foundation oriented itself around European integration, while mobilizing resources to help those affected by conflict after Russia’s invasion and illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. Over its lifetime, the foundation has supported more than 18,000 projects, benefiting millions of people.