That's a delicate process. If our goal is to support democracy, we cannot have other agendas. Otherwise our efforts might be met with cynicism and even provoke a backlash. In a word, we can best serve our own higher interest by supporting others' legitimate aspirations for freedom and democracy. This leads to a second apparent paradox.
Political foundations deserve public funding because they serve a public purpose.
Yet they can only be effective if they are independent of government. It should certainly be possible to develop appropriate means of consultation with government, but government needs to respect the independence of the foundations. As democratic governments themselves get more involved in democracy-promotion programs, such consultation becomes more important. We have found that government programs often build upon initiatives started with our grants, often using much greater resources than we have available. This suggests a relationship of complementarily between the programs of governments and political foundations.