Two Washington-based Organizations Merge
Today, April 15, 2022, the Public Diplomacy Council and the Public Diplomacy Association of America merged to form The Public Diplomacy Council of America (PDCA), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit registered in the state of Virginia.
The PDCA will offer an annual award for outstanding public diplomacy initiatives at the U.S. State Department, sponsor lectures and discussions, and foster mentoring and teaching activities and the Hans “Tom” Tuch Fellowship for a graduate student at American University. It will also promote public diplomacy among members of Congress and the general public.
For more than three decades, the two predecessor organizations, the Public Diplomacy Council (PDC) and Public Diplomacy Association of America (PDAA), fostered greater understanding of the United States’ communication with the rest of the world, and promoted more active participation by the American public.
All active members of the PDC, an organization that originally formed to advance public diplomacy as a profession, and PDAA, an organization originally composed of alumni of the U.S. Information Agency, are charter members of the PDCA, which will carry on their programs and activities and create new ones.
The new organization’s membership combines some 400 active and retired professionals with people who aspire to careers in the field. Its members come from foreign affairs agencies, academe, defense, media, nonprofits, and private enterprise.
Dr. Sherry Mueller, a scholar-practitioner at American University, and Joel Fischman, a retired Foreign Service Officer, are co-presidents.
For more information, go to https://publicdiplomacy.org.
