Citizen Diplomacy International of Philadelphia

Citizen Diplomacy International was founded by civic leaders in 1954 as a public/private partnership with both the City of Philadelphia and the U.S. Department of State. We are called the city's ‘international engine' because of the thousands of delegations and individuals we've brought – and bring – to Philadelphia, and the relationships we quietly develop for our universities, museums, schools and businesses. CDI is part of a unique network of 95 non-profits across the U.S. that build mutual understanding through personal interaction with Americans – citizen diplomats. There is no other network like this in the world. We have an exclusive relationship with the State Department and our county's highest exchange, the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), which is consistently ranked by ambassadors as our government's #1 public diplomacy program, and considered important for Homeland Security because of the friends it makes for our country. Among IVLP participants are more than 350 who later became head of Government or Chief of State – including Germany's Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt; England's Gordon Brown, Margaret Thatcher and Edward Health; and South Africa's F.W. DeKlerk, who was in Philadelphia in 1976. Just months after DeKlerk became President he released Nelson Mandela from prison, and the New York Times reported him as saying that coming through the U.S. on this program changed his views on race relations. This 'citizen diplomacy' network was nominated for the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.