In 2025, Learning Life is working to raise $5,000 in grassroots donations and sponsorships to help fund and grow Citizen Diplomacy International (CDI), including CDI's quarterly discussions of the research and practice of citizen diplomacy (CD), our quarterly, email CDI Bulletin providing CD news, publications and profiles, and the growth of our database of CD publications, organizations, authors and leaders.

Please contribute $100, $250, $500, $1,000 or what you can afford to support CDI. Donations are 100% tax deductible in the USA. Individuals contributing $250 or more, and organizations contributing $1,250 or more can get a tax deduction, and/or sponsor benefits. Please contact us at email@learninglife.info if you wish to sponsor CDI.

Thank you for your support!

Why support CDI? Read on...

Citizen diplomacy (CD) can be most simply and broadly defined as citizen communication and cooperation across national borders, or “the right, even the responsibility, every person has to help shape international relations” (Mueller, 2020).

Due to globalization, the internet, rising education levels, and long-term democratization, CD is growing, and becoming a more important part of diplomacy and international affairs. CD takes myriad forms, including business, sports, culinary, health, science, educational, arts, religious, and family diplomacy.

Why does CD matter? Life on Earth is rapidly changing. Societies are becoming more complex and accordingly harder to comprehend. Our lives and fates are more and more shaped by governments, businesses and their technologies near and far, often not of our making. Globalization is intertwining us economically and politically with varied strangers worldwide, yet in our everyday lives we connect more with people who are similar rather than different from us, making us less equipped for and more fearful of our diverse future.

At the root of these fundamental conditions and a lot of problems that spring from them – from loneliness, depression and civic disengagement, to inequality, corruption, resentment of refugees and immigrants, war and climate change – lies disconnection, from (a) the policy-making that affects our lives, and (b) the diverse strangers with whom we are intertwined. At its best, CD gets at this root problem of disconnection by connecting diverse strangers across borders to learn, collaborate and influence local-to-global government, business, nonprofit and media policy making on international issues.

Learning Life’s Citizen Diplomacy International (CDI) helps advance the growing CD field by:

(1) Gathering diplomacy scholars, students, professionals, and interested observers every three months via Zoom to network and learn about CD research and practice, local to global.

(2) Publishing the CDI Bulletin quarterly, offering free CD news, publications and profiles.

(3) Expanding a database of CD publications, organizations, authors and leaders.

All the above with an eye to building a vibrant global CD sector for a more participatory, equitable and sustainable world.

P.S. Help spread the word about CDI with this social media template message you can copy, edit and share:

Think international affairs matter? Want to help build a more connected, caring world? Then, support citizen diplomacy! Give $100, $250, $500, $1,000, or what you can to Citizen Diplomacy International. Thank you! https://givebutter.com/W1UHSn

Support Citizen Diplomacy International

Citizen diplomacy for a more connected, caring world

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