Don Eberly
Key Player

Founder, Civil Society ProjectDon Eberly is the founder and a former director of the Civil Society Project (CSP).

Eberly also founded the Commonwealth Foundation (a think tank in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) and the National Fatherhood Initiative, which is credited with launching a national community-based social movement on behalf of fatherhood.

Eberly’s work has received extensive media attention, including profiles in The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek. He is the author or co-author of eight books, including The Essential Civil Society Reader, a widely-used text on American civil society.

During the Reagan Administration, Eberly served as deputy director of the Office of Public Liaison. From 2001 to 2002, he held the position of Deputy Director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. In this role, Eberly helped oversee President Bush’s plan to provide billions of social service dollars to private charities.

In 2002, Eberly moved to the United States Agency for International Development, where he was a senior counselor for international civil society.

In April 2003, he went to Baghdad and served as an interim minister in the Coalition Provisional Authority. Eberly later returned to the U.S. to continue working for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which included overseeing private donations to Iraq.