US DIPLOMATIC
STUDIES FOUNDATION

ABOUT

At the US Diplomatic Studies Foundation (DSF), we are driven by the goal to help educate and support State Department Foreign and Civil Service professionals. The Foundation was formally established in 2017 after years of research on how to best improve the process behind forming and executing foreign policy. Our commitment is inspired by our belief in the diplomatic process. We believe that strong diplomacy is key to a peaceful and prosperous future, and thus educating professionals in the State Department is a critical priority.

WHAT WE DO

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Our mission is to improve the training and education of Foreign Services Officers and their Civil Service colleagues at the State Department. We have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) which prioritizes using funds raised by the Foundation to establish innovative pilot programs, including bringing retired diplomats back to teach at FSI as well as supporting evaluation of courses and subsequent officer performance. We not only work with the State Department itself, but we collaborate with other departments and agencies to learn about the tactics they employed to improve their own training practices. In the words of Ambassador Daniel Smith, the Director of FSI, "There are things that we simply can’t do with the resources we have, and I think [this partnership with] the US Diplomatic Studies Foundation will enable us to do those things in a way that we may have never envisioned before. This is an important chapter in the history of this institution.”

Photo (from left to right): Amb. Julieta Valls Noyes, Amb. Daniel Smith, Amb. David Miller, and Amb. Thomas Pickering at the FSI-DSF MOU Signing Ceremony on February 5th, 2019

Photo Credit: Michael Morrison

WHO WE ARE

Men Shaking Hands

The US Diplomatic Studies Foundation team is composed of former senior national security professionals. They bring to the Foundation a great depth of expertise formed over four decades of work in the foreign policy sector, as well as a bipartisan voice.

US government building

"By failing to prepare,
you are preparing to fail."

Benjamin Franklin,
America's First Diplomat

The US Diplomatic Studies Foundation is a Delaware 501(c)3 organization founded on September 26, 2017. It received its Letter of Tax Exempt Status on May 25, 2018, retroactive to September 26, 2017, and its taxpayer identification number is 82-3100621. For certain taxpayers, gifts to the Foundation may be tax deductible. It is Foundation policy to decline payment of government negotiated overhead to public research organizations that are receiving grants or gifts from DSF. Current members of its Board of Directors are Rand Beers, David C. Miller, Jr., and Bruce P. Bedford.