Programs

The Foundation's programs generally serve to advance these three aspects of the U.S. Foreign Service:

1. Outreach
- to build constituency to support an effective, robust Foreign Service.

2. Recruitment
- of the best possible people for our Foreign Service.

3. Professionalism
- of the active duty Foreign Service.

 

Since its establishment in 1980, the Foundation has funded and supported a wide range of programs to support the US Foreign Service.

  • American Academy of Diplomacy/Building a Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future (2007 - present)

  • Oral History of the 2006 Lebanon Evacuation by the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (2007)

  • State Department's Diplomatic of the Future Project/Competency Modeling (2006 & 2007)

  • “Embassy of the Future” Project Study and recommendations by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (2006 & 2007)

  • Programs for Foreign Service dependents' training, employment, education and health (2005 - present)

  • “USDiplomacy.org” website by the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (2005 - 2007)

  • State Department's ISO-9000 Process Mapping Workshops for management reforms (2005 - 2007)

  • State Department pilot project for midlevel management officers' external details to learn best practices (2005 - 2007)

  • Publication of a book, US Foreign Service Life: A Practical Guide, by authors Harry Kopp and Charles Gillespie, Jr. to honor, explain and promote the Foreign Service to its employees and constituents (2005 & 2006)

  • Update of the McKinsey & Co. "War for Talent" study for the State Department (2005)

  • Findings to the State's Director General of the Foreign Service of surveys by the Institute for International Education and by member schools of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA) on attitudes toward the Foreign Service as a career (2005)

  • Secretary of State's Public Outreach Awards to encourage and recognize officers' public speaking on role of diplomacy in America (2004 - present)

  • Travel costs incident to an eight-part series on the US Foreign Service, “America's Other Army” and a Foreign Service book project by journalist Nicholas Kralev of the Washington Times (2003 & 2004)

  • Reform of the Foreign Service Officer Entry Process (2001 - 2003, 2006 & 2007)

  • Initial design of Department of State's US Diplomacy Museum & Visitors Center (2000 - 2003)

  • A major study by the Henry L. Stimson Center on the advocacy of US interests abroad, co-funded by the Delavan and Ford Foundations (1996 - 1998)

  • A documentary film Profiles in Diplomacy: the US Foreign Service – shown on public television and available on videotape with classroom guides for educational use and recruitment (1991 - present)

  • Overseas internships in US Embassies for talented and financially needy students (1999 - 2003) including Howard University/Rangel Fellows (1991 - present)

  • Establishment and support of the Foreign Service Youth Foundation (1989 - present)

  • Awards for language instructors at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center (1987 - present)

  • The Foreign Service Oral History Project (1987 - 2001)

  • Participation by Foreign Service Officers of ambassadorial rank and their spouses in the Aspen Institute Executive Seminars (1983 - 2007)

  • Sabbatical Leave Fellowships for midlevel Foreign Service Officers (1981 - present)