Recently I met with several members of an association called Young Professionals in Foreign Policy (YPFP). I was surprised to learn there are thousands of them in several cities around the world… and they are not all in government positions. Many work for professional associations, embassies, international banks, consulting firms, and countless NGO’s.
NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) range from disaster relief, to healthcare, to conservation and cause-promoting organizations. Most are non-profit and international in their outlook.
If “strategic communication” is defined as planning and implementing communication initiatives to achieve specific outcomes, and “public diplomacy” is defined as people communicating directly with people in other cultures the basic elements of their beliefs and values, then NGO’s are clearly using strategic communication tactics to carry out basic public diplomacy.
There are many varieties of public diplomacy carried out each day by thousands of governments and NGO’s. One would think we would be making much greater progress toward world peace. And while many of these organizations also have education programs, we might just have to call upon education institutions to complete the job.
Higher education potentially is the purest form of public diplomacy. People gather to learn about each other’s way of life, the elements of global leadership, and how to use research and knowledge skills to solve world problems. Maybe as this industry becomes even more international, we will finally have the groundwork in place to achieve a true community of nations.
Larry D. Lauer 
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