Across some of the world’s most repressive and fragile environments, a modest grant can be a gamechanger. 88 percent of NED’s 2024 direct grants were under $150,000. With these modest grants, NED supports grassroots leaders, civic entrepreneurs, and democracy advocates working on the frontlines of freedom. In 2024, our partners broke through censorship, exposed corruption, galvanized mass movements, and helped deliver international accountability—all with limited resources but unmatched courage, credibility, and local insight.
We see every grant as a strategic investment—venture capital for democracy.
These examples show how targeted support to trusted, talented grantees can deliver transformational impact—advancing freedom, transparency, and democratic norms where they’re needed most. From breaking information blockades to catalyzing global action, NED grantees helped change the course of events in repressive and transitional contexts alike. Here’s how:
1. Holding China to Account for Forced Labor and Corporate Complicity
In one of the clearest examples of strategic pressure from below, NED-supported advocacy groups confronted the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) industrial-scale forced labor system. Through dogged investigative work and dedicated campaigns to illuminate the CCP’s economic exploitation of Uyghur labor, these groups helped hold global companies accountable. These efforts show how local expertise and smart advocacy can hold deliver significant impact.
2. Breaking Cuba’s Information Blockade
With two modest grants, Cuban independent media that received funding from NED reached over 10 million people in 2024—half of them inside Cuba. These platforms, seeded through years of support, now bypass censorship, challenge disinformation, and connect Cubans across the island and diaspora. It’s a textbook example of how investing early in local media can grow into a resilient ecosystem for truth.
3. Documenting China’s Religious Repression
In defiance of one of the most closed and censored regimes in the world, NED grantees documented the CCP’s systematic persecution of religious minorities. Their reporting—on mass internment camps, the abuse of Muslim women for wearing hijabs, and the jailing of Christian leaders—has galvanized international condemnation and spurred sanctions against perpetrators. Because NED grantees are defending the freedom of belief and conscience, people around the world are fighting back against Beijing’s repression.
4. Exposing Atrocities in Sudan’s Civil War
In the absence of international observers, NED grantees became the front-line witnesses to Sudan’s unfolding war crimes in 2024. Their documentation—of sexual violence, ethnic massacres, and child soldier recruitment—directly informed the U.S. Government’s January 2025 genocide determination and spurred the creation of a UN Fact-Finding Mission in 2023. In one of the world’s most dangerous crises, such efforts bolster the enduring power of evidence and truth. This work also positions Sudanese who embrace democratic values over violence as trusted voices during the conflict so they can play critical roles as leaders in a future peaceful Sudan.
5. Elevating Afghan Women’s Political Leadership
With a single grant, NED enabled Afghan women leaders to organize the first women-led summit since the Taliban’s return to power. Bringing together women living inside Afghanistan and those in exile, their declaration on inclusive governance garnered significant attention and praise inside Afghanistan and around the world. Even in exile, courageous Afghan women continue to work with those inside the country to shape their nation’s future—and NED is helping ensure their voices are heard.
6. Advancing Justice for Iran’s Human Rights Abuses
NED partners were instrumental in securing the creation of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, ensuring sustained global attention to the regime’s brutality. By documenting ongoing repression and coordinating international advocacy, they helped expand the mission’s mandate beyond the “Women, Life, Freedom protests”—ensuring the regime’s broader system of abuse remains in the spotlight. Their work supports the idea that evidence, when collected diligently and strategically, can reshape global accountability mechanisms.
7. Exposing the Hidden Costs of CCP Influence in Serbia
NED-supported investigative outlets uncovered corruption in Chinese-funded construction deals—revelations that triggered Serbia’s largest protests in years. This is democracy support at its sharpest: small grants enabling watchdog journalism that breaks elite impunity and reveals how authoritarian regimes weaponize infrastructure projects to spread influence.
8. Defending Russia’s Political Prisoners
In a country where speaking the truth is a criminal act, NED funding sustains legal aid and advocacy for over 1,500 political prisoners. Many of these individuals—once jailed for dissent—have emerged, upon their release as influential voices for democracy. These grants protect the lifelines of resistance and ensure that persecuted activists, journalists, and ordinary Russians are not forgotten.
9. Unmasking Authoritarian Corruption in Georgia
Amid growing authoritarian alignment with Russia, China, and Iran, NED grantees in Georgia exposed election-rigging and sanctions evasion by Russian oil firms. Their courageous journalism informed citizen protests and helped keep Georgia’s pro-democracy movement alive—demonstrating how local reporting can defend democratic sovereignty from creeping autocracy.
10. Defending Religious Freedom in Cuba and Nicaragua
NED-supported civic networks now span both countries, systematically documenting violations of religious freedom—from targeted harassment to the jailing of faith leaders. These reports have informed UN mechanisms and prompted formal appeals by member states, demonstrating that consistent, credible grassroots monitoring can bring critical attention to rights abuses in closed societies.
