2026 Award for PD Leadership by a Senior Officer


1. SUMMARY: The Public Diplomacy Council of America has established an annual award to recognize Public Diplomacy Leadership by a Senior Officer overseas or in a domestic assignment in the Department of State. Nominations for the award should be submitted by Friday, March 13, 2026. 

2. BACKGROUND: PDCA and its predecessor organizations have awarded honors to public diplomacy activities at American Embassies and Consulates or to domestic offices supporting public diplomacy since 1992. PDCA is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) association of professionals and scholars with a stated mission of promoting excellence in the professional practice or academic study of, and advocacy for, public diplomacy. With this award, PDCA honors a senior officer not directly leading a Public Diplomacy Section overseas. 

3. ELIGIBILITY: The PDCA Award for Public Diplomacy Leadership by a Senior Officer is open to Chiefs of Mission and Principal Officers overseas and to Assistant Secretaries and Deputy Assistant Secretaries in domestic assignments. Officers in these positions in all bureaus are eligible. The Award recipient should ensure the conditions set forth in 11 FAM 613.1-6(A) have been met, and confer with L/EFD in the event there are any questions in that regard. 
 

4. CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION OF NOMINATIONS:

  1. Integrates Public Diplomacy strategies across the range of foreign policy objectives.
  2. Demonstrates leadership in marshaling broad mission participation in public diplomacy activities abroad or in prioritizing public diplomacy efforts within a domestic bureau or building partnerships between bureaus and offices in support of specific public diplomacy initiatives. Weight will be given to efforts that mobilize all embassy sections in conducting mission- wide public diplomacy work, especially in engaging overseas audiences not traditionally reached and/or areas outside of the capital or consulate city.
  3. Has had documented success in using public diplomacy tools, including social media, to change a host country policy and/or host country public opinion on an issue of major importance to U.S. policy or perceptions of the United States.
  4. Has evidence of success in building new institutional linkages and enlisting non-USG entities such as educational institutions and private business, whether American or host country, to support public diplomacy programs and initiatives (financially, politically, technically, or otherwise) to multiply their impact, scope, and/or effectiveness in the host country or regionally.
  5. Demonstrates leadership in using innovative strategies to rapidly and effectively counter disinformation overseas and replace it with accurate perceptions using activities tailored to specific overseas audiences designed to change public opinion and win support for the United States.
  6. Demonstrates how the actions of the officers (and the programs they implemented) helped to make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous.
5. NOMINATION CONTENT: Nominations should be sent by e-mail to awards@publicdiplomacy.org and include the following:
  1. Name, title, and email address of nominator;
  2. Name, title, work location, and email address of nominated individual(s) and group designation, when appropriate;
  3. Brief description of nominee(s) role(s) within the organization;
  4. Statement of public diplomacy goal(s) achieved; and
  5. Narrative (maximum of two double-spaced pages) describing a specific initiative or activity and how it contributed/s to achievement of the public diplomacy goal(s) identified immediately above). General performance evaluations are not sufficient. Nominations should document leadership and evidence of effective use of media, social media, digital programming, exchange programs or cultural presentations, and/or private-sector contributions in achieving specific projects in challenging environments.
  6. Publicly available relevant information in photographic, video, and/or written form that would specifically support a nomination may also be included. Web links may be provided to any such material that is publicly accessible online. Nominators wishing to include any material subject to third-party copyright or other IP rights must ensure they have appropriate permission to do so.
  7. All information should be strictly unclassified and non- sensitive; no nonpublic information may be provided.
6. SELECTION: The Award recipient will be notified of their selection by email in late April and invited to participate in a special web-based program (normally held in conjunction with Foreign Affairs Day on May 1, 2026) that honors the winner and provides them with the opportunity to describe the project or activity for which they were nominated.
 

7. ACTION REQUEST: Nominations should be emailed no later than March 13, 2026, to the following PDCA awards email address: awards@publicdiplomacy.org.