Financier George Soros in New York City on August, 19, 2010.
Spencer Platt/Getty

Financier George Soros in New York City on August 19, 2010.

Billionaire financier George Soros has offered Human Rights Watch a staggering challenge grant of $100 million, saying he wants the U.S. based human rights advocacy group to find $10 million in matching donations each year for a decade. Soros spoke on Morning Edition, telling NPR's Steve Inskeep he began his philanthropic life with Human Rights Watch and doesn't want it to 'lose its initial zeal'. Soros:

It's an American organization and that has become a throwback because America has lost the moral high ground for promoting human rights. So I want the organization to become truly international, with maybe, the American members in the minority.

During the past 20 years, NPR has received $2 million dollars from Soros and his foundations.

 

According to the New York Times, this is the largest donation Soros has ever made and the biggest Human Rights Watch has received. When questioned whether human rights organizations might have trouble lobbying a country such as China, with its global business interests, Soros agreed but returned to his first point of expanding the membership of Human Rights Watch:

The U.S. has lost the moral high ground that the - under the Bush administration. There've been many human rights violations uh, committed by Americans. And that has sort of - endangered the credibility, the legitimacy, of Americans being in the forefront of advocating human rights. That is a big, big setback for the movement. ...  We really have to recognize the excesses that were committed in connection with the Iraqi War and correct the record.  Otherwise it's going to weigh - on us - forever.