The consequences have been immediate and far-reaching. Overseas, programs that once stabilized communities, saved lives, and supported economic growth have been disrupted or halted. But the impact has also been deeply felt at home, particularly by the thousands of USAID staff and partners facing layoffs, financial strain, and an uncertain professional future. For many, this was not just the loss of a job. It was the sudden end of work they regarded as central to U.S. leadership in the world. A Consequential Network In the absence of the institution, its community stepped forward. The USAID Alumni Association (UAA), originally formed in 2009 to maintain connections among former colleagues, evolved into something more consequential: a network for advocacy, support, and the preservation of a professional discipline that risks being irreversibly damaged or forgotten. Over the past year, the UAA community has mobilized with urgency and purpose. We have expanded membership to include those most affected by the agency’s closure, including institutional support contractors who served at USAID. Regional branches—particularly in states such as California and Florida—have become more active, creating new opportunities for engagement and solidarity. The UAA has also provided tangible support where it was most needed. Through its staff assistance fund, it has delivered emergency financial aid and job search training to hundreds of former colleagues. These efforts have helped stabilize individuals navigating sudden and often disorienting change. At the same time, the UAA community has worked to honor the legacy of USAID’s workforce—recovering employee awards, reconnecting them with their recipients, and supporting events with sister organizations to recognize decades of public service. Beyond mutual support, the UAA has taken on a broader mission: to explain, and defend, the role of development in American life. Through a growing speakers bureau and new outreach initiatives, former USAID professionals are engaging the U.S. public more directly, making the case that foreign assistance is not peripheral to national interests, but central to them. This effort reflects a deeper concern: that the dismantling of USAID risks eroding not just programs but understanding. Defending the Idea of Development Development, after all, is not an abstract ideal. It is a technical, evidence-driven discipline—one that requires expertise in economics, governance, public health, agriculture, and more. It demands rigorous monitoring, long-term evaluation, and an ability to operate in complex political environments. USAID embodied that expertise. It is no surprise then that the agency had the most highly educated workforce in the federal government. This concentration of specialized knowledge existed nowhere else at comparable scale. That capacity cannot be easily replaced. Recognizing this, the UAA has also taken on the role of institutional steward. Working with other organizations like AidTA, efforts are underway to preserve USAID’s intellectual and historical legacy, including the recovery of hundreds of thousands of digital records and the documentation of professional experience through in-depth interviews with former staff. These materials represent not just the history of an agency, but a repository of lessons learned over decades of global engagement. The goal is not simply archival. It is preparatory, because few who understand the field doubt that the United States will eventually need to rebuild its development capacity. The challenges that USAID addressed—fragility, poverty, instability, and the global ripple effects they produce—have not disappeared. If anything, they have intensified. The dismantling of USAID may come to be seen as a defining moment in the trajectory of U.S. global leadership. But it is not the end of the story. Looking to the Future Across the country and around the world, a dispersed but determined community continues to carry forward the agency’s core mission: to advance stability, opportunity, and human dignity as integral components of U.S. foreign policy. In doing so, they are preserving more than a legacy. They are keeping alive an idea—that America’s strength lies not only in what it can compel, but in what it can build, in power and in partnership. And in that sense, the future of development in the United States may depend less on institutions than on the people who refuse to let that idea fade. n THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2026 25 Chris Milligan (right) leads a talk with USAID’s Nicholas Enrich about his book, Into the Woodchipper, at an event co-sponsored by the USAID Alumni Alliance and DACOR at the DACOR Bacon House in Washington, D.C., on June 5, 2026. DACOR
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODIyMDU=