Enduring Purpose

Letter from the Editor

BY SHAWN DORMAN

The receipts are starting to come in on the dismantling of USAID. A year since the September 2, 2025, deadline for all USAID operations to be transferred to State or shut down, we are taking stock.

Beginning with the January 20, 2025, Executive Order 14169, “Reevaluating and Realigning the United States Foreign Aid,” and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s stop-work order on all foreign assistance worldwide four days later, the “realignment” of USAID functions to the State Department in the name of efficiency and savings has proven to be neither, the results mostly tragic.

In February 2025, AFSA joined a lawsuit against the illegal firings of USAID employees and freezing of programs. That lawsuit is still in play.

On February 27, 2025, my colleagues and I stood in front of the Ronald Reagan Building, the newly shuttered headquarters of USAID, seeing the USAID sign over the door covered in black garbage bags and the letters on the wall pried off, holding up ❤️USAID signs to clap out the dedicated USAID public servants who were each given just 15 minutes to clear out their offices. For me, that was when the reality of the dismantling of USAID hit home.

The trauma to the workforce was deliberate, the losses very real. An entire sector was being erased before our eyes. It felt close, personal, and tragic. And it was a window into the administration’s broader effort to vilify public service.

The story of the DOGE-led tearing apart of the U.S. government agency tasked with running global humanitarian assistance for the past 65 years is one of profound loss of lives and livelihoods that will go down in history as the first, and perhaps worst, endeavor of the Trump II administration.

The July 2026 report from the Government Accountability Office, the August report from State’s Office of the Inspector General, along with crucial findings from The Lancet and others, bring the receipts.

To date, there has been almost no accountability for the losses, while the administration’s “Trade over Aid” replacement framework remains unclear. (We invited the leadership of State’s Bureau of Disaster and Humanitarian Response to write on the role of this new division, announced in March, but they declined.)

When we considered what cover image could possibly capture the essence of the dismantling of USAID and a world without USAID, the powerful photo of AFSA’s USAID VP Randy Chester comforting one of the thousands of USAID employees being displaced came immediately to mind.

As part of AFSA’s Service Disrupted campaign, the FSJ has published dozens of personal accounts from those affected.

Today, a year since the last round of staff dismissals, we look to the community and we see that while the trauma is still fresh, they have not given up on the mission or one another.

In this edition, we hear from some of those who gave so much to USAID on what’s next and how they are working to ensure humanitarian assistance work continues and the expertise of those displaced is not lost.

Find articles from Susan Reichle, now working with the Aid Transition Alliance, Chris Milligan with the USAID Alumni Association, Laura Pavlovic with Our USAID Community, and Victoria Mitchell Avdiu and Bryn Sakagawa with AID Coaching.

Jaime Oberlander shares her groundbreaking survey of the USAID workforce, and John Dunlop tells of his harrowing escape from the DR Congo and later return to post to shut down the USAID mission there. In Speaking Out, Brendan Wheeler calls for a reckoning before rebuilding.

Also check out the resource list for USAID alumni that includes new and long-established organizations supporting former USAID staff and humanitarian assistance work more broadly.

The DOGE chainsaw was as brutal and destructive as its “Wall of Receipts” was deceitful. Yet it could not destroy the spirit and resolve of those who served. We hope to honor them all in some small way through this edition.

Write us at journal@afsa.org.