The National Endowment for Democracy goes dark

By Jack Poulson and Lee Fang - May 1, 2025

The overt replacement for the CIA’s foreign political action funding has transitioned back to covert funding, using ‘duty of care’ as a rationale.

This article was originally published by Jack Poulson and Lee Fang at All-Source Intelligence.

The National Endowment for Democracy, a U.S.-government backed nonprofit designed to influence the domestic politics of countries across the globe, says its efforts are part of a campaign to promote “open and transparent government.”

The group, funded by Congress and working in tandem with the State Department, has backed activists and civil society groups across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa to push for greater disclosure among government entities. For instance, a recent NED report argues that “enhancing transparency” is vital for building trust in institutions and democratic governance, and urges the adoption of new disclosure laws for countries in the Balkans.

Despite the altruistic goals of disclosure for the developing world, NED is now going dark. In a new “duty of care” policy published this week, NED quietly announced a new rule to conceal the names of recipients of its programs from the public. Its 2024 grant list, attached to the policy, features dollar figures and one sentence summaries for over 1,700 grants. All of the external recipient names and identities have been wiped.

The move amounts to a fundamental shift in NED programming. For decades, the group, in accordance with its public demands for transparency, has published annual lists disclosing its grant recipients.

Formed in the early years of the Reagan administration in response to increasing controversy surrounding the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency, NED set out to engage in pro-American foreign influence initiatives that were once the domain of covert operations. “This program will not be hidden in the shadows. It will stand proudly in the spotlight, and that’s where it belongs,” stated Reagan in 1983.

“A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,” stated former acting NED president Allen Weinstein in a widely quoted 1991 interview with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. “The biggest difference is that when such activities are done overtly, the flap potential is close to zero. Openness is its own protection,” he continued.

The primary U.S. funder of overt operations has been the NED, the quasi-private group originally headed by Carl Gershman that is controlled by the U.S. Congress, Ignatius explained. Through the late 1980s, it did openly what had once been covert — such as dispensing money to anti-communist forces behind the Iron Curtain and funding dissident media known as ‘samizdat’.

The endowment was initially active inside the Soviet Union. It gave money to Soviet trade unions; to a foundation headed by Russian activist Ilya Zaslavsky; to an oral history project headed by Soviet historian Yuri Afanasyev; to the Ukrainian independence movement known as Rukh, and to many other projects. Avoiding the scandal of journalists and governments uncovering covert political action funding has been the raison d’être.

More recently, NED has been highly active in efforts to highlight Chinese human rights abuses, especially in the predominantly Muslim Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and its grantees have worked in Ukraine to counter alleged Russian influence. In a report titled “Long-Term Investments Pay Dividends in Ukraine,” NED touted its work funding local think tanks and activists pushing for civil society reforms, including a controversial media registration law in 2023 used to shut down media outlets accused of spreading Russian narratives.

NED, despite its status as a quasi-independent nonprofit, continues to serve as an arm of the U.S. government. Its leadership features former government policymakers and elected officials, and its funding is virtually all from appropriations earmarked by Congress. As of fiscal year 2024, 99.3% of the organization’s $356.5 million in revenue came from the U.S. Government.

The push for secrecy by NED is justified as a security measure designed to protect the recipients of its funds. In a statement, the group noted that the Taliban had targeted Afghans associated with NED and that NED grantees were on Russian “kill and capture” lists.

In 2022, NED allegedly deleted its Ukraine-related grant lists. Archived internet records show that over $22 million in grants to groups and activists in the country appear to have been wiped.

Yet the sudden reversal on transparency comes amid a broad push for secrecy. Last month, the U.S. Government-backed international journalistic group Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) similarly advised its peers to “launder money legally” as part of hiding sensitive donors, in response to what OCCRP described as a “toxic future” for pro-democracy journalists. The State Department further retroactively deleted details of the vast majority of USAID’s personal services contractors from public records.

“Rather than listing names that could serve as a roadmap for those seeking to silence advocates for freedom, we provide descriptive information that reflects the nature of their work without compromising their security,” wrote Wilson in Monday’s policy announcement. The new policy, he added, still maintains “the spirit of transparency.”