Humanitarian Leadership

Eberly has been a leader in developing strategies for community-based solutions to social problems, both in his writings and as a nonprofit social entrepreneur. 

He is the founder or co-founder of several successful nonprofits (see Bio), and has been a leading advocate of philanthropy and voluntarism. Commenting on Eberly’s book on building communities from the bottom up, Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution stated: “No one has studied or participated in U.S. civil society efforts to assist the least advantaged more consistently and discerningly than Don Eberly.”

Eberly has also traveled with delegations to Africa to better understand and write about innovative development and reconciliation practices.

Based on his leadership in promoting non-governmental, community-based solutions, Eberly was tapped by President George W. Bush to design, staff, and roll out the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives, one of the President’s top three policy initiatives for the first 100 days. After completing the initial phase, Eberly moved to USAID where he led efforts to transform international aid programs to better engage local grassroots community and faith-based partners.

While serving at the State Department, Eberly was tasked with coordinating the U.S. government’s response to the 2004 tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean, traveling with a team to Banda Aceh, the hardest hit coastal city.

Working with major international nonprofits, Eberly helped coordinate the private sector’s response to the disaster, which yielded one of the largest charitable outpourings in history, netting nearly $2 billion in donations.

When serving as a senior advisor to Presidential envoy Jay Garner, the first Presidential envoy in Iraq, Eberly organized a worldwide campaign to provide soccer balls to Iraqi youth, hoping to quickly offer a return to normal life following the war. He presided over the rebuilding of the Iraq Ministry of Youth and Sport, the Iraqi Olympic Committee, and the network of community centers across Iraq. After returning from Iraq to the State Department, Eberly coordinated broad private sector donations of medical, educational, and other essential supplies.

Motived by a concern for the well-being of children, Eberly founded the National Fatherhood Initiative in 1994, whose mission was to improve the lives of children by increasing the number of committed, involved fathers. Over the years, NFI has been responsible for generating upwards of $400 million in donated pro-fatherhood messaging, thousands of local father-serving programs, government partnerships, and extensive training.

More recently, Eberly was tapped as a senior executive for the prime contractor operating a 2,500-bed emergency intake site for unaccompanied refugee children in southern California. He has also contributed to programs supporting the Afghan refugee population.