National Endowment for Democracy (NED)

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a U.S. non-profit soft power organization that was founded in 1983 to promote democracy abroad. It is funded primarily through an annual allocation from U.S. Congress in the form of a grant awarded through the United States Information Agency (USIA). This allocation comes from within the budget of USAID, the U.S. agency for development assistance, which is part of the U.S. State Department.

Although administered as a private organization, its funding mostly comes from a governmental appropriation by Congress but was created by The Democracy Program as a bipartisan, private, non-profit organization.

In addition to its grants program, NED also supports and houses the Journal of Democracy, the World Movement for Democracy, the International Forum for Democratic Studies, the Reagan–Fascell Fellowship Program, the Network of Democracy Research Institutes, and the Center for International Media Assistance.