Over the course of our 35-year history, we have changed some of the ways we work.  If you've known GMF for ten years or more, your exposure to GMF was likely first through our grantmaking or our networking and exchange programs, two of our longest-standing tools for strengthening the transatlantic relationship. In fact, our cornerstone exchange program, the Marshall Memorial Fellowship (MMF), celebrated its 25th year in 2007. Our networking work is both local and global. It includes briefings, testimony, and study tours we conduct to help the U.S. Congress stay current on developments in Europe and in the transatlantic sphere, and also our efforts to use new communications tools, like podcasts and the GMF blog, to bring the transatlantic debate to others around the world.

But in the last ten years, we've built two new "pillars" of our work. First, we've become a powerful convener on a host of issues, always striving to bring Americans and Europeans to the table together, in settings both large and small, to solve the pressing issues of the transatlantic relationship. Nowhere is this more evident than in our high-level Brussels Forum, which has become in just two years the key gathering for political and governmental figures, business leaders, journalists, and academics to discuss and debate the transatlantic agenda, which really is a global agenda. Second, we have stepped up research on the transatlantic agenda, whether through the work of in-house Transatlantic Fellows and staff or through grants to academics and think tanks working on issues affecting the Euroatlantic partnership.

When it comes down to it, GMF is a hybrid organization, both giving grants to others for work on the transatlantic relationship and seeking grants from other foundations to work on our own transatlantic projects and programs.

You may also know GMF through one of our offices. Sometimes, people think the office they know is GMF's only office, or one of only a few offices. As an American organization, GMF's headquarters are in Washington, DC, which has us in prime position to be a resource for the think tank community, Capitol Hill, the administration and agencies, journalists, and the business community.

More than that, though, GMF has a transatlantic reach thanks to seven European offices-each with a unique focus-located in key cities and regions of Europe that tap into the local intellectual and policy communities. GMF would not be able to offer the breadth or depth of expertise on Europe without these European offices. Naturally, the Berlin office has been the longest-standing European office (moved from Bonn soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall), and it houses the bulk of our immigration and integration work. Our Bratislava office works broadly on Central and Eastern Europe, including new democracies like Ukraine. The Paris office, in addition to plugging into the important French policy community, runs the European component of our MMF Program.

The Brussels office, in addition to liaising with the European Union and NATO communities, organizes Brussels Forum and other high-level conferences in Europe. The Balkan Trust for Democracy in GMF's Belgrade office gives grants to local and regional organizations working on cross-border reconciliation in the Balkans. The Ankara office works on all major GMF projects and programs while also focusing on Turkey as a strategic player in the transatlantic relationship. And the Bucharest-based Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation (BST), opened in 2007, is just underway in the Black Sea region giving grants that encourage democratic practices and civil society development.

BST is a good example of our reach, both into a region and out of a region. A public-private partnership involving donors like USAID, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Romanian government, and the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Latvia, BST is modeled on our Balkan Trust for Democracy, which has been a smashing success since its inception in 2003. Together with our partners, we identified the Black Sea region as the next critical area that demands American and European cooperation to ensure the growth of peace and democracy in those countries bordering the Black Sea and to protect Europe's eastern borders. As such, BST's grantmaking responsibilities are critical to helping countries like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova, among others, in their quests for political and governmental reform. And by having an office in the region, GMF is much better positioned to help those in Washington, Brussels, and European capitals understand the political and economic realities of life and government in the Black Sea countries. We will see an example of that on the sidelines of the April NATO Summit when GMF will convene the Bucharest Conference, which will address with Americans, Europeans, and those from the region strategic NATO issues-like energy security-that require cooperation and input from countries in the region.

Our immigration work is another example of how GMF tackles an issue across offices using multiple tools. With staff devoted to migration policy in both Berlin and Washington, the Immigration and Integration Program gives grants to key institutions working in the field; convenes meetings on the topic in Washington, Berlin, and other cities throughout Europe; networks with the other institutions in the migration policy field; and with the debut of the Transatlantic Trends on Immigration public opinion survey this coming summer, will be doing original research work to further the migration discourse on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2008, we also will be launching a transatlantic conference for young leaders in the immigration field with the Robert Bosch Stiftung.

Similar examples could be made of our work on trade, development, and agriculture or our burgeoning work on climate and energy or our work on transatlantic approaches to China; all broad and effective measures to strengthen the transatlantic relationship.