In just three days, nearly PLN 200,000 was spent on Facebook ads, and the Foundation’s “get out the vote” content is breaking records for reach among voters. Behind the scenes: George Soros, the Atlas Network, and a cavalcade of liberal foundations from across the Oder. On the domestic front: MEP Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, Minister Adam Szłapka, corporate sponsors, and key allies of Donald Tusk. The latest report from Piotr Okulski at the Observatory for Economic and Democratic Development shows that the Liberté Foundation is not just a sharp-witted ideas magazine – it’s also a well-oiled political machine, running a parallel campaign with zero accountability, indirectly boosting Rafał Trzaskowski.
The “Third Way” of Financing: From Soros to the Polish Business Roundtable
How can a small think tank from Łódź operate with a budget larger than 91% of similar organizations in the country and afford to spend PLN 65,000 a day on Meta ads? The answer lies in a dense web of donors. At the forefront is George Soros’s Open Society Foundations – a long-time partner of the Freedom Games, Liberté’s flagship event. These OSF grants are supplemented by the Atlas Network, a U.S.-based alliance of free-market think tanks, and the German-backed Friedrich Naumann Foundation.
But the real gold comes from Polish sources – the Polish Business Roundtable (PRB) and the Foundation for Economic Freedom. In 2023, PRB provided PLN 750,000 for the “Tribe Atlas” campaign, which was meant to “encourage youth turnout” but in practice energized Civic Coalition (KO) voters against PiS. Now, in the heated days of May 2025, it’s likely that the same pockets are opening again. The result? On one day alone, PLN 42,000 vanished from Liberté’s accounts – twice as much as the official campaign budgets of both Trzaskowski and Nawrocki combined. What’s more, the Foundation operates almost entirely on grants and sponsorships. With only PLN 320,634 in business income, it still ended 2023 with a clean profit of PLN 1.67 million. Such financial success is rare in the NGO world – and it sends a clear signal: donors are not investing in abstract civic education, but in concrete political outcomes.
Source: Liberté Foundation Financial Report, 2023
Sienkiewicz & Co.: Personal Ties to the Power Elite
Money is only half the story. The other half is people – and their movement between NGOs and government offices. Okulski’s report exposes a key fact: Leszek Jażdżewski, vice president of the Foundation, has co-led the “Common Plan” association with Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz (Civic Platform) since 2019 – Sienkiewicz being an MEP, former Culture Minister, and one of Donald Tusk’s closest allies. Sitting on the supervisory board of the same initiative is Agata Stremecka, head of Leszek Balcerowicz’s FOR Foundation.
It was no coincidence that Jażdżewski introduced Donald Tusk on stage on May 3, 2019, warming up the crowd with an anti-clerical monologue about “pigs in the mud.” Since then, the media duo of Jażdżewski and Tusk has become a symbol of the liberal offensive – even as Civic Platform scrambled to distance itself from the anti-church rhetoric.
President Błażej Lenkowski prefers to operate behind the scenes, but his youth CV speaks volumes: vice-chair of Young Centre (the youth wing of the now-defunct Freedom Union) and long-time colleague of then-general secretary Adam Szłapka – now the leader of the Nowoczesna party. That’s how soft power is built: just look at how many Liberté Discussion Club alumni now sit in KO MPs’ offices or at Warsaw City Hall.
Source: Observatory for Economic and Democratic Development
Stealth Mode Campaign: Hidden Pages and Negative Messaging
Under the guise of “nonpartisan” civic education, the Foundation is running what political scientists would call a classic black ops campaign. A newly created, nearly anonymous Facebook page with fewer than 100 likes is used solely to publish paid ads. Total cost: around PLN 200,000 in just a few days.
TV Republika reported yesterday that at its peak – May 22–24 – Liberté was pumping PLN 44,000–65,000 a day into ads, reaching up to 5 million users. In comparison, KO’s official campaign looks like a scaled-down version.
Playing Two Pianos: Think Tank Meets Quasi-Campaign HQ
Liberté’s model resembles political double bookkeeping. On one hand, the Foundation presents itself as a prestigious think tank, hosting Yuval Noah Harari, Frans de Waal, and Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya at its Freedom Games – lending an air of cosmopolitan intellectual glamour.
On the other hand, when elections come around, those same accounts fund hard-hitting campaign content. In 2023, “Tribe Atlas” – humorous, meme-driven, yet ideologically clear – helped push youth turnout to a record 68%, one of the key factors in PiS’s defeat. Today, that scenario is repeating itself: Liberté is once again mobilizing the urban liberal electorate – only now, the prize is the Presidency.
This dual-function model acts like an amplifier: intellectual sheen attracts Western grants, which in turn finance political marketing at home. As a result, Liberté is spending more on ads than Trzaskowski – yet no one holds them accountable for campaign spending limits, because technically… they’re not running a campaign. It’s all just “voter engagement.”
Source: Observatory for Economic and Democratic Development
A Wake-Up Call for the Electoral Commission – and Voters
The Observatory’s report leaves little doubt: Liberté has become the most powerful non-party force backing the ruling coalition. With a budget exceeding PLN 8 million per year, an international donor network, and hotel rooms full of Western consultants, the Foundation has the tools to influence election outcomes beyond the reach of the National Electoral Commission.
Moreover, its personal ties to government figures – from Sienkiewicz and Szłapka to City Hall – suggest a new model in Polish politics: a “party without a party.” No need to register a committee, collect signatures, or file financial disclosures. Just secure a Soros grant, add a few million from other sources, unleash creative marketers, and slap on the slogan “Democracy in Practice.”
Which is why it’s up to voters to ask: do we really want the largest budget in a presidential election to belong not to a candidate’s committee, but to a foundation floating somewhere between Soros and Polish millionaires?
In the name of transparency, Liberté – if it truly aspires to be a fourth pillar of democracy – should publish a full donor registry, grant amounts, and sponsorship agreements. Instead, silence. Meanwhile, its Facebook ad library keeps growing, along with the reach of spots about “animal rights” and “rainbow love.” Who knows – come June 24, when Poles head to the polls, it may turn out that it was Liberté’s untraceable golden bullets that tipped the scales.
The Liberté Foundation often speaks of “modernizing liberal Poland.” But the structure exposed by the Observatory looks more like a corporate takeover of public life: Western money, Warsaw connections, and a Łódź headquarters that can fire off PLN 200,000 in ads like a cannon blast. Democracy? Sure – but democracy on grant-funded steroids. And to the question “Who’s paying for this?”, the answer is: Soros, Naumann, Atlas, PRB, FWG… and ultimately, all of us – because the price of a democracy on performance enhancers will be paid on election day.