The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is an American quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization or according to others a government-organized non-governmental organization (GONGO) founded in 1983 with the aim of advancing democracy abroad by promoting political and economic institutions, including political groups, business groups, trade unions, and free markets.
The NED was created as a bipartisan, private, non-profit corporation, but acts as a grant-making foundation. It is funded primarily by an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress. In addition to its grants program, the NED also supports and houses the Journal of Democracy, the World Movement for Democracy, the Reagan–Fascell Fellowship Program, the Network of Democracy Research Institutes, and the Center for International Media Assistance.
Upon its founding, the NED assumed several former activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. Political groups, activists, academics, and some governments have accused the NED of being an instrument of U.S. foreign policy helping to foster regime change. In February 2025, the Department of Government Efficiency under Elon Musk blocked disbursement from the Treasury of the NED's congressionally-mandated funding; in August, the NED was granted an injunction to allow access to its funds.
History
Founding The National Security Decision Directive 77 was instrumental for the creation of Project Democracy and its offspring NED.
In a 1982 speech at the Palace of Westminster, President Ronald Reagan proposed an initiative, before the British Parliament, "to foster the infrastructure of democracy – the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities." This intersected with previously formulated plans by the American Political Foundation, an NGO supported by some members of the Republican and Democratic parties, together with scholars based at CSIS, to create a government-funded but privately run democracy promotion foundation to support democratic civil society groups and parties. The idea was strongly championed by the State Department, which argued that a non-governmental foundation would be able to support dissident groups and organizations in the Soviet Bloc, and also foster the emergence of democratic movements in US-allied dictatorships that were becoming unstable and in danger of experiencing leftist or radical revolutions, without provoking a diplomatic backlash against the US government. After some initial uncertainty over the idea from Reagan Administration hard-liners, the U.S. government, through USAID, contracted The American Political Foundation to study democracy promotion, which became known as "The Democracy Program".
In 1983, the House Foreign Affairs Committee proposed legislation to provide initial funding of $31.3 million for NED as part of the State Department Authorization Act (H.R. 2915), because NED was in its beginning stages of development the appropriation was set at $18 million. Included in the legislation was $13.8 million for the Free Trade Union Institute, an affiliate of the AFL–CIO, $2.5 million for an affiliate of the National Chamber Foundation, and $5 million each for two party institutes, which was later eliminated by a vote of 267–136. The conference report on H.R. 2915 was adopted by the House on November 17, 1983, and the Senate the following day. On November 18, 1983, articles of incorporation were filed in the District of Columbia to establish the National Endowment for Democracy as a nonprofit organization.
1980s to present An analysis by political scientist Sarah Bush found that while NED activity in the 1980s focused on direct challenges to autocrats by funding dissidents, opposition parties, and unions, the majority of 21st-century NED funding goes to technical programs that are less likely to challenge the status quo, with the proportion of NED funding for "relatively tame programs" increasing from roughly 20% of NED grants in 1986 to roughly 60% in 2009. Political scientist Lindsey A. O'Rourke writes that, "Today, NED programs run in more than ninety countries. Although the number of US-backed democracy promotion programs have grown, most of today's programs pursue less aggressive objectives than their Cold War counterparts." In a 1991 interview with the Washington Post, NED founder Allen Weinstein said: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."
During the 1984 Panamanian general election the American Institute for Free Labor Development and the NED provided around $20,000 in support of activists involved with Ardito Barletta's campaign.
In 1984, NED began its activities in China, helping to launch the Chinese-language quarterly journal The Chinese Intellectual (TCI) and funding its publications. The journal, which was originally targeted at Chinese students and scholars in the West, opened offices in Beijing in 1988. The TCI was forced to move back to New York following the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.
The NED was active in Yugoslavia before its dissolution. It arranged meetings between Yugoslav dissidents and members of the U.S. Congress, U.S. government officials, and members of the media. It also gave funds to Freedom House which were used to fund the Yugoslav opposition.
NED has financed Uyghur émigré groups that oppose the People's Republic of China. Since 2004, NED has granted $8,758,300 to Uyghur groups including the World Uyghur Congress, the Uyghur Human Rights Project, the Campaign for Uyghurs and The Uyghur Transitional Justice Database Project. It has also provided extensive grants for programs pertaining to Tibet. Between 2005 and 2012, it gave grants to the China Free Press NGO and in 2019 it gave about $643,000 to civil society programs in Hong Kong. In response, in 2020 China imposed sanctions on NED president Carl Gershman and Michael Abramowitz, the president of Freedom House.
The NED played a role in supporting the Arab Spring of 2011. For example, the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and individual Yemeni activist Entsar Qadhi received training and finances from the NED. In Egypt, between 2008 and 2012, it also supported Colonel Omar Afifi Soliman, an exiled police officer who opposed both Hosni Mubarak's and Mohamed Morsi's presidencies, as well as secularist activist Esraa Abdel-Fatah's Egyptian Democratic Academy in 2011.
Second Trump administration In 2025, Elon Musk criticized the NED as "rife with corruption" and guilty of "crimes", later calling it an "evil organization" that "needs to be dissolved". He also wrote "NED is a SCAM." In February 2025, Musk's Department of Government Efficiency cut funding to the NED by blocking disbursement from the U.S. Department of Treasury, causing significant disruptions to the organization. The Free Press believes that dismantling the NED would symbolise a momentous change in U.S. foreign policy, undermining the idea that democratic ideals foster U.S. global strength and influence, and that the Trump administration therefore no longer believes that promoting democracy in the world is in the national interest. On February 12, the NED informed the organizations it funds that it would suspend payments immediately. Additionally, organizations supported by NED started laying off staff and cutting expenditures. On March 1, NED's International Forum for Democratic Studies suspended operations due to inability to access funding. They also had to furlough most of the staff. On March 5, the NED filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. On August 12, the NED was granted an injunction to allow it to access the remaining $95 million of its previously-appropriated funds for 2025.
Funding and structure NED is a grant-making foundation, distributing funds to private non-governmental organizations for promoting democracy abroad in around 90 countries. Half of NED's funding is allocated annually to four main U.S. organizations: the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (associated with the AFL–CIO), the Center for International Private Enterprise (affiliated with the United States Chamber of Commerce), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (associated with the Democratic Party), and the International Republican Institute (formerly known as the National Republican Institute for International Affairs and affiliated with the Republican Party). The other half of NED's funding is awarded annually to hundreds of non-governmental organizations based abroad which apply for support. In 2011, the Democratic and Republican Institutes channeled around $100 million through the NED.
Source of funding The NED receives an annual appropriation from the U.S. budget (it is included in the chapter of the State Department budget allocated for USAID) and is subject to congressional oversight even as a non-governmental organization.
From 1984 to 1990 the NED received $15–18 million of congressional funding annually, and $25–30 million from 1991 to 1993. At the time the funding came via the United States Information Agency. In 1993 the NED nearly lost its congressional funding, after the House of Representatives initially voted to abolish its funding. The funding (of $35 million, a rise from $30 million the year before) was only retained after a vigorous campaign by NED supporters.
In the financial year to the end of September 2009 NED had an income of $135.5 million, nearly all of which came from U.S. government agencies. In addition to government funding, the NED has received funding from foundations, such as the Smith Richardson Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, and others. The Bradley Foundation supported the Journal of Democracy with $1.5 million during 1990–2008.
In 2018, President Donald Trump proposed to slash the NED's funding and cut its links to the Democratic and Republican Institutes.
Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) In 2006, CIMA was founded as an initiative of the National Endowment for Democracy with encouragement from Congress and a grant from the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. CIMA promotes the work of independent media and journalists abroad, with a focus on the developing world, social media, digital media, and citizen journalism. It issued its first report, Empowering Independent Media: U.S. Efforts to Foster Free and Independent Media Around the World, in 2008, and subsequently issued other reports, including a report on digital media in conflict-prone societies and a report on mobile phone use in Africa.
Reception Writing in Slate in 2004, Brendan I. Koerner wrote that, "Depending on whom you ask, the NED is either a nonprofit champion of liberty or an ideologically driven meddler in world affairs."