The Open Society Foundations has announced fourteen grants through its New Executives Fund to help recently appointed leaders of nonprofit organizations implement their visions.

Established in 2013, the fund awards two-year grants of between $95,000 and $135,000 in support of leadership development and organizational sustainability. This year's recipients are working in a range of efforts, including legal protection of LGBTQI rights, digital rights advocacy, gender equality, community-centered policy making, and civic engagement.

Recipients include Evelyn Austin of Bits of Freedom, a Netherlands-based organization that engages in digital rights advocacy in areas such as profiling, encryption, copyright reform, and dragnet surveillance; Shereen Essof of Just Associates, which generates knowledge about power, movements, and change to shape theory, practice, and policies to advance women's rights and democratic change worldwide; Ricardo Martinez of Equality Texas, which works to secure full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people in Texas; and Magdalena Sepúlveda of the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which works to promote transformative change through a human rights lens and end endemic problems of social and economic injustice.

"Our hope is that this support can offer these leaders the space to dream and collaboratively imagine new possibilities for their organizations, together with their staffs, boards, and constituents," said New Executives Fund project director Bipasha Ray. "During this current moment in history, we need to encourage and reward bold thinking more than ever."

For complete list of New Executives Fund grantees, see the Open Society Foundations website.