Carl Gershman
Carl Gershman (born July 20, 1943)[1] 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.[2][3][4][5]
Carl Gershman
July 20, 1943
New York City, New York, U.S.
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).[2][4]
Early life and education[edit]
Gershman was born into a Jewish family in New York City on July 20, 1943. In 1961, he graduated magna cum laude from the Horace Mann Preparatory School in the Riverdale section of The Bronx.[2][6] As an undergraduate at Yale University, he was active in the Yale Civil Rights Council,[6] and volunteered in Mississippi and Alabama.[7]
In 1965, he graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts degree[2][6] and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.[1][6]