2026 Awards for Achievement in Public Diplomacy

1. SUMMARY: The Public Diplomacy Council of America (PDCA) is now inviting nominations for its 2026 Awards for Achievement in Public Diplomacy (PD), and the deadline for nominations is Friday, March 13, 2026. These awards recognize outstanding contributions to the conduct of PD by Department of State employees who are members of the Foreign Service (FS) and Civil Service (CS), or locally employed (LE) staff, as well as U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) employees, American Spaces staff, Fulbright Commission staff, and EducationUSA advisors. Award recipients will be offered cash awards, certificates of achievement, and one-year memberships in PDCA. The award recipients 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.

2. RECOGNITION: Awardees will be recognized at a virtual special awards ceremony and asked to describe the projects or activities that served as the basis for their awards as a part of this online ceremony, held in conjunction with Foreign Affairs Day o/a May 1, 2026. 

3. BACKGROUND: PDCA is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) association of professionals and scholars. It represents the merger of the PD Council and the PD Association of America. Membership is open to all current and former Department of State and USIA employees and PD professionals from the public, academic, and private sectors. Its stated mission is to promote excellence in the practice, study, and teaching of PD. Information about past awardees can be found on the PDCA website: https://www.publicdiplomacy.org/awards.php
 
4. ELIGIBILITY: PDCA welcomes individual and group nominations of Department of State FS and CS employees, LE staff, USAGM employees, American Spaces and Fulbright Commission staffers, and EducationUSA advisors. Private sector individuals may be included in group awards if they were active participants in the activities described in the nominations.
 
5. CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION OF NOMINATIONS: Nominations should demonstrate creativity and potential for sustainability and possible replicability and/or adaptation of the projects or initiatives elsewhere as appropriate. They should also address at least one if not more PDCA goals. These goals, based on PDCA values, are found on the PDCA website: https://publicdiplomacy.org/our_values.php. Nominations should demonstrate how the actions of the officers (and the programs they implemented) helped to make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous.
 
6. NOMINATION CONTENT: Nominations (unclassified material only) 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 PD 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 PD 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.
 
7. SELECTION: The award recipients will be notified of their selection by email by mid-April 2026 and invited to participate in a special virtual program that honors the winners and provides them with the opportunity to describe the project or activity for which they were nominated.
 
8. ACTION REQUEST: Members of the foreign affairs community, overseas and domestic, can nominate deserving individuals or groups for the 2026 PDCA Awards for Achievement in PD. Nominations should be emailed no later than March 13, 2026, to the following PDCA awards email address: awards@publicdiplomacy.org.