Prior to the NED, Gershman was senior counselor to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and was Alternate U.S. Representative to the U.N. Security Council during the first term of the Reagan administration.

[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.

[2] In a 2006 interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Gershman said "I'm non-partisan; I try to bring Democrats and Republicans together in the United States, which is not that easy because we're very divided politically, today.

"[7] In a 1982 speech at the Palace of Westminster, President Ronald Reagan proposed an initiative "to foster the infrastructure of democracy--the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities."

The program recommended the creation of a bipartisan, private, non-profit corporation to be known as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Under the program, NED, while non-governmental, would be funded primarily through annual appropriations from the U.S. government and subject to congressional oversight.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee proposed legislation to provide initial funding of $31.3 million for NED as part of the State Department Authorization Act (H.R.

On November 18, 1983, articles of incorporation were filed in Washington, D.C. to establish the National Endowment for Democracy as a nonprofit organization.

[19] NED is structured to act as a grant-making foundation, distributing funds to private non-governmental organizations for the purpose of promoting democracy abroad.

The other half of NED's funding is awarded annually to hundreds of non-governmental organizations based abroad, which apply for support.