THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL-MAY 2025 77 AFSA NEWS These are trying times for the Foreign Service, including American employees and locally employed (LE) staff. As colleagues, we must support the Foreign Service community in any way we can. The demands are monumental. Our priority must be supporting our colleagues amid profound challenges. In the longer term, we also need to protect the institutions that help us support each other, such as the Foreign Service National (FSN) Emergency Fund. It is in that spirit, and on behalf of our LE staff at missions worldwide, including local USAID staff, that a group of seven retired ambassadors—Nancy Powell, Maureen Quinn, Steve Browning, Kathleen Doherty, Michael McKinley, David Johnson, and Steven Mann— worked over the past year to update the FSN Emergency Relief Fund to ensure it remains sustainable for the future. Thirty years ago, the FSN Emergency Relief Fund was established to respond to the immediate humanitarian needs of Foreign Service Nationals (now called LE staff) and their families affected by natural disasters and war. In 2024, many of our host country colleagues faced unprecedented hardship. From Haiti and Venezuela to Sudan, Ukraine, the Middle East, and Afghanistan, headlines told stories Revamping the FSN Emergency Relief Fund of devastation. Most of us have known or heard about LE staff who lost homes to floods, gang violence, or armed conflict. Since its inception in 1994, the FSN Fund has disbursed more than $2 million in voluntary contributions to affected local staff across the regional bureaus, including personnel from other U.S. government agencies under chief of mission authority. The stipends, typically under $1,000 per family, provide vital assistance during crises. Many of us assume Washington or our missions overseas can step in and assist, but there are, in fact, no congressionally appropriated funds available that can be disbursed to local employees for damage to personal property. The group instead focused on two immediate steps to increase donations, both of which have succeeded: Securing a Unique Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN): The department obtained a unique TIN for the FSN Fund, separating it for tax purposes from the department’s other gift funds. This measure assures donors that their contributions in fact go to the FSN fund, allows the department to more easily track contributions, and encourages direct contributions from donor-advised funds and from retiree contributions through nontaxable IRA disbursements. The EIN number is 38-4303032. Registering with Major Donor-Advised Funds: The department also registered the FSN Fund with three of the top five donor-advised funds—Fidelity, Vanguard, and J.P. Morgan. Test contributions have been made successfully through these three funds. In addition, the group recommended promoting the fund at AFSA and American Academy of Diplomacy events and increasing social media engagement to highlight its importance in responding to crises. It would be naive not to acknowledge that major changes may come to the State Department in the future, and impact this and other initiatives to assist our wider family. Strengthening the FSN Fund, however, continues to be worth supporting in these trying times, and, as with every year, unforeseen events will highlight its continuing saliency and need. For more information on the fund, visit https://state. gov/the-foreign-servicenational-emergency-relieffund/. —P. Michael McKinley is a retired Foreign Service officer who served as ambassador to Peru, Colombia, Afghanistan, and Brazil and as senior adviser to the Secretary of State. n From the FSJ Archive What LE Staff Want You to Know For a first-hand look at the important work locally employed staff do on behalf of the U.S. government, take a look at the December 2018 FSJ Focus on “What Local Staff Want You to Know.” It includes personal stories written by LE staff in cities from Paris to Pretoria, including USAID Foreign Service local hires. Find the edition online at https://bit.ly/FSJ-Sept2018. n
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