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All applicants must have at least a high school diploma or its equivalent. Fellows cannot be full-time students during their fellowships.

The fellowships do not fund enrollment for degree or non-degree study at academic institutions, including dissertation research. Past recipients of a Soros Justice Fellowship are not eligible to apply. Applicants may be based outside the United States, as long as their work directly relates to a U.S. criminal justice issue. Projects that include lobbying activities will not be funded.

Eligibility for Advocacy Fellowships

Advocacy Track I
Advocacy Track I applicants must have at least two (2) years of relevant experience, which may include: full-time and part-time employment; paid or unpaid internships; sustained volunteer work; or other pertinent experience (e.g. advocacy while incarcerated). Advocacy Track I is for people at a range of phases in their careers, including but not limited to: people just entering the field following post-graduate education; advocates with a few years of work experience; and those beginning to work on criminal justice reform issues after a career in another field or after some other life experience.

Advocacy Track II
Advocacy Track II applicants must have at least ten (10) years of relevant advocacy experience. Advocacy Track II is for seasoned, established, and accomplished leaders and experts in the field—ideally people who have distinguished themselves on a local, state or national level; and who have the kind of stature, experience, and capacity necessary to have a meaningful impact on an important criminal justice reform issue.

Under the Advocacy Fellowship category, the fellowships do not allow multiple individuals to apply jointly for a single Advocacy Fellowship.

Eligibility for Media Fellowships

Experience
Applicants are ideally full-time writers, print or broadcast journalists, filmmakers, artists, or other media makers, with well-established records of publication, exhibition/performance, dissemination, or broadcast in local, regional or national markets, or among targeted audiences or constituencies. Applicants who are not professional writers, journalists, filmmakers, or other types of media makers must demonstrate that they nonetheless have the experience and capacity to accomplish the project.

Media Track I applicants must have at least two (2) years of relevant full-time experience.

Media Track II applicants must have a minimum of ten (10) years of relevant full-time experience. Applicants with fewer than 10 years of relevant full-time experience may nonetheless be considered for a Media Track II fellowship, provided they can demonstrate that they have truly distinguished themselves over the course of their careers.

Joint Applications
Up to three (3) individuals can apply jointly for a Media Fellowship. However, joint applications carry a single award. For joint applicants, the “full-time work” requirement does not apply to each applicant; instead, the applicants’ combined time spent on the project must be at least 35 hours per week.

The fellowships do NOT fund the following:
- Enrollment for degree or nondegree study at academic institutions, including dissertation research
- Projects that address criminal justice issues outside the United States (applicants themselves—with the exception of Youth Activist Fellowship applicants—can be based outside the United States, as long as their work directly relates to a U.S. issue)
- Lobbying activities

Application and Selection Timeline
- Application Deadline: November 20, 2019 (11:59 p.m. PST)
- Finalists Notified: Mid-January 2020 (all applicants will be notified via email whether they have been selected as a finalist)
- Supplementary Materials: Early-February 2020 (those selected as finalists asked to submit letters of recommendation, and detailed project timeline, as well as any project updates)
- Finalist Interviews: Late-February 2020 (all finalist interviews will be held on the same day, to be announced, at the Open Society
Foundations offices in NYC)
- Selected Fellows Notified: Late-March 2020
- Projects Begin: Anytime between July and November 2020

Two important notes regarding the portal: (1) when you register, be sure to click on “Individual Grants” and not “Organizational Grants” (even if you are applying with a host organization); (2) once registered, do not fill out the information for the “Bank Accounts,” “Academic History,” and “Work Experience” tabs in your user Profile.