This is a quasi-governmental organization conceived by the Reagan administration and funded by Congress to "promote democracy" overseas. NED's funding comes from the U.S. government, primarily from the US Information Agency and the US Agency for International Development (AID).

In turn, it funds some private right-wing operations like the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) run by old-guard Reagan Republican apparatchiks, corporate lobbyists, Republican think-tankers, and anti-communist zealots still fighting the Central American Cold War ... presumably to preserve the markets for unfettered American free enterprise.