John Hood
President, John William Pope Foundation
John Hood is president of the John William Pope Foundation, a Raleigh-based grantmaker. Hood also serves on the board of the John Locke Foundation, the state policy think tank he helped found in 1989 and led as its president for more than two decades.
Since 1986, Hood has written a syndicated column on politics and public policy for North Carolina newspapers. It appears regularly in the Winston-Salem Journal, Greensboro News & Record, Wilmington Star-News, Triangle Business Journal, and newspapers in 50 other communities. A frequent radio and television commentator, Hood is the author of seven nonfiction books on such subjects as business, advertising, public policy, and political history. His most-recent books are Mountain Folk (2021), Forest Folk (2022), and Water Folk (2024) — all historical-fantasy novels set in early America.
A former Bradley Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Hood teaches at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. His articles have appeared in magazines such as Readers’ Digest, The New Republic, National Review, Military History, The Spectator, and Reason as well as newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Chicago Tribune, and The Seattle Times. He also spent 25 years on statewide television, appearing on the weekly programs “N.C. Spin” and “North Carolina This Week.”
At Locke, Hood created the E.A. Morris Fellowship for Emerging Leaders, which prepares young North Carolinians for leadership roles in the public and private sectors. He also serves on the faculty and as board chair of the NC Institute of Public Leadership; as co-chair of the North Carolina Leadership Forum, based at Duke University; as vice-chair of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal and the State Policy Network; and on the boards of the Student Free Press Association, the Raleigh Economics Club, and the Carolina Liberty Foundation.
Hood received his BA in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he serves as vice chair of North Carolina Public Radio-WUNC and the foundation board of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media. He earned a MA in liberal studies and a graduate certificate in nonprofit management from UNC-Greensboro. A native of Mecklenburg County, Hood now resides in Wake County with his wife, two sons, and a stepdaughter.
