Eric K. Ward
Eric K. Ward, a national expert on the relationship between hate violence and preserving democratic institutions, governance, and inclusive societies, brings nearly 30 years of expertise in community organizing and philanthropy to his role as Western States Center’s Executive Director.
Ward began his civil rights work when the white nationalist movement was engaged in violent paramilitary activity that sought to undermine democratic governance in the Pacific Northwest. In the early 1990s, Ward founded and directed a community project to expose and counter hate groups and respond to bigoted violence with the Community Alliance of Lane County. Following that, with the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment, Ward worked with government leaders, civil rights campaigners, businesses leaders, and law enforcement officials to establish over 120 task forces in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. Ward went on to join the Center for New Community as National Field Director, where he assisted immigrant rights advocates in addressing the growing influence of xenophobia on public policy.
Beginning in 2011 as Program Executive for The Atlantic Philanthropies’ U.S. Reconciliation and Human Rights Programme, Ward led grantmaking in immigration and national security and rights. Additionally, Ward’s grantmaking as a Ford Foundation Program Officer supported efforts to combat inequality. Ward has consulted extensively with philanthropic institutions across the country including the Open Society Foundation, and co-founded Funders for Justice. A contributor to the Progressive Media Project from 2008-2014, Ward has been quoted and cited extensively by national media and is the editor of three published works: Conspiracies: Real Grievances, Paranoia and Mass Movements; Second Civil War: States’ Rights, Sovereignty; and Power of the County and American Armageddon: Religion, Revolution, and the Right. Ward is also the author of the 2017 essay Skin in the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism.