The United States Foreign Service

The men and women of the US Foreign Service are America's first line of defense. They provide the diplomatic skills and professional continuity to assist Presidents and Secretaries of State in formulating and implementing the nation's foreign policy. Foreign Service professionals serve at American embassies and consulates around the world. In addition to representing the United States to other countries and international organizations, they assist American citizens, private voluntary organizations and businesses operating abroad. They are employees of the State Department, the Agency for International Development, the Commerce Department's Foreign Commercial Service, and the Agriculture Department's Foreign Agriculture Service.

About the Foundation

Established in 1980 by Ms. Una Chapman Cox of Corpus Christi, Texas, the Cox Foundation is dedicated to the proposition that the United States needs a strong, professional foreign service. It serves that objective by supporting America’s Foreign Service in three principal areas:

• Recruiting the best and the brightest individuals for the Foreign Service
  
  
• Enhancing retention through enriching professional opportunities
  
  
• Educating and stimulating the U.S. public to support adequately an effective U.S diplomacy.

The Cox Foundation uses its resources to fund projects and activities within its area of interest, and to encourage support from other public and private institutions. Where appropriate, the Cox Foundation also contributes human resources and experience, derived from its ongoing relationships with active and retired Foreign Service Officers and the organizations to which they belong.

The Cox Foundation funds career enriching activities for Foreign Service Officers and their spouses which places them in contact with the general public, thus bolstering the Foundation's objective of public awareness and understanding of the Foreign Service. Other Cox Foundation programs address particular concerns, inherent in service abroad, of Foreign Service spouses and family members.

 

For the purposes and objectives of the Foundation, the Foreign Service of the United States is as defined in the Foreign Service Act of 1980.