American financier and philanthropist George Soros established the foundation. It is named after the 16th century king of Poland of Hungarian extraction (Mr. Soros is of Hungarian extraction as well). Its mission is to support the development of an open, democratic society in Poland and other Central and Eastern European countries.

Poland has seen huge changes in the last 15 years and continues to make impressive progress in its transformation from a communist state to one of the most promising new entries into the European Union. Many of the group's leaders, who came from all over Poland, and a few from the Ukraine, expressed pessimism over the rate of change in their country and the ability of their organizations to hold their governments accountable...they imagined that in the US things were quite different. I shared with them that government watchdogs and reform groups need to have a marathoner's mentality. Anything worth winning takes time -- after all, it took us seven years to pass our campaign finance reform legislation (the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002), and in the process we had to overcome two filibusters, a presidential veto, a discharge petition, and work our issue through four congresses!