Carl Gershman

Carl Gershman (born July 20, 1943) served from 1984-2021 as the founding president of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a private, congressionally-funded, grant-making institution that supports non-governmental groups working for democracy around the world. During his presidency, NED’s annual congressional appropriation grew from $18.5 million in 1984 to $300 million a year in 2021, when it funded nearly 2,000 projects in 100 countries.

Gershman also initiated a range of activities aimed at supplementing the grants program through democracy research, advocacy and networking, including the International Forum for Democratic Studies, the Journal of Democracy, the World Movement for Democracy, the Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program, and the Center for International Media Assistance. Prior to the NED, Gershman was senior counselor to the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Jeane Kirkpatrick and Alternate U.S. Representative to the U.N. Security Council during the first term of the Reagan administration. He was also a resident scholar at Freedom House (1980) and executive director of Social Democrats, USA (1974-1980).