Near East Foundation

The Near East Foundation (NEF) is an American international social and economic development organization based in Syracuse, New York. The NEF had its genesis in a number of earlier organizations. As the scope of relief expanded from aid to Greek, Armenian and Assyrian victims of the Ottoman Empire to post-World War I relief in the region, the names and mission changed. The inception was as the American Committee on Armenian Atrocities, followed by American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief (ACASR), then American Committee for Relief in the Near East (ACRNE), before becoming Near East Relief in August 1919. In 1930 as the relief work diminished and development work expanded, the organization reorganized as the Near East Foundation. The NEF is the United States' oldest nonsectarian international development organization and the second American humanitarian organization to be chartered by an act of Congress. Near East Relief organized the world's first large-scale, modern humanitarian project in response to the unfolding Armenian and Assyrian genocides. Known as the Near East Foundation since 1930, NEF pioneered many of the strategies employed by the world's leading development organizations. In the past 100 years NEF has worked with partner communities in more than 40 countries.