THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2025 67 AFSA TERM REPORT Daily Star. For the first time, AFSA also introduced diplomacy-themed merchandise, generating funding to support outreach initiatives. Since our centennial year, the American political landscape has shifted dramatically, requiring AFSA’s communications and outreach priorities to shift with it. Crisis communications are now central to our efforts. We’ve built an infrastructure for rapid response communications, ensuring that AFSA can quickly react to policy shifts and workforce disruptions. In the first few months of the new administration alone, AFSA sent more than 20 member messages on workforce changes; launched an online resource hub with real-time guidance; and increased our social media audience by more than 30 percent through breaking news responses. To sharpen our messaging, we conducted an inhouse strategic messaging workshop, equipping AFSA leadership with the tools to communicate effectively in an evolving policy landscape. We also launched Service Disrupted, a public relations campaign exposing the erosion of the Foreign Service workforce, particularly at USAID. Storytelling has been key to these efforts, with AFSA using social media to document the realworld effects of these losses. As a result, AFSA has surpassed peer organizations like USGLC in LinkedIn followers and is now second only to the State Department among similar groups. Our results speak for themselves—from January through March of this year, we reached a record 1.7 million users with our content. AFSA has also expanded its national media presence. Over the past two years, we have been featured on 60 Minutes, NPR, The New York Times, Fox News, and countless other national news outlets. Through our “Hometown Voices” initiative, we’ve mobilized retired Foreign Service members for interviews and op-eds in regional and local newspapers, ensuring that Foreign Service stories are being told far beyond the Capital Beltway. Meanwhile, AFSA President Tom Yazdgerdi has taken our outreach on the road, visiting California, Florida, and South Carolina to meet with local leaders, universities, and community organizations. These trips have helped build grassroots support for the Foreign Service. Additionally, we’ve sustained our long-standing educational efforts through our high school essay contest; our Inside Diplomacy webinar series; and our Road Scholar and Chautauqua programs, reinforcing the importance of diplomacy and development to those who otherwise might not understand how this work impacts U.S. national security. To support our expanded outreach and communications efforts, we updated our website, making it easier for members to access timely updates, digital campaigns, and advocacy tools. Through it all, AFSA has met the moment. Through crisis communications and strategic storytelling, we have ensured the Foreign Service’s voice is being heard. Professional Policy Issues During this term, professional policy issues staff, often working with our advocacy team, have prioritized keeping AFSA members fully informed about AFSA’s advocacy agenda. One of the principal ways we have done this has been to publish an advocacy update approximately once a quarter. The update essentially serves as a one-stop shop for AFSA members, since it includes status reports on AFSA’s advocacy priorities for each agency, plus our retiree-centered advocacy. We have conceptually combined the advocacy update with periodic town halls to create a continuous stream of information to our members, and their questions and advocacy recommendations back to us. This practice has created a rich feedback loop with our constituencies. Added to these publications and events are the surveys AFSA has created. During this term, AFSA sent out various general and specific surveys such as a survey on overseas road safety in the Foreign Service, the professional development program (PDP) survey for State Department FS generalists and specialists, and the cost-of-living survey. Due to the outsized impact of house and general price inflation on Foreign Service families who relocate to Washington and other destinations, senior leadership at State requested that AFSA share with them the cost-of-living survey results as soon as they were completed, demonstrating the power and import of AFSA’s work in pushing ahead an evidence-based, relevant advocacy agenda. As in previous board terms, PPI took the lead in organizing the Governing Board retreat, which outlines
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