DIANE M. FOLEY

Diane Wright Foley is the President and Founder of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation (JWFLF), which she established in September 2014, less than one month after ISIS publicly beheaded her son, James W. Foley, an American freelance conflict journalist, in Syria.

In 2015, she led JWFLF’s efforts to help fund the launch of Hostage US and the International Alliance for a Culture of Safety (ACOS). She also actively participated in the National Counterterrorism Center’s hostage review, which culminated in Presidential Policy Directive 30. That directive established the current U.S. hostage enterprise, including the interagency Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, and the White House Hostage Response Group, all focused on securing the release of innocent Americans taken hostage or wrongfully detained abroad. JWFLF also played an instrumental role in the passage of the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act, which codified the current U.S. hostage enterprise.

Since 2014, Diane has been a tireless advocate for hostages, wrongful detainees, and their families, working within the U.S. hostage enterprise, with Congress, and across every presidential administration. She has raised public awareness of international hostage-taking, wrongful detention, and journalist safety through the HBO documentary Jim: The James Foley Story, opinion pieces in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today, as well as through numerous media interviews.

Diane has also spoken about the power of forgiveness in faith communities and at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome in 2025.

She was featured in 200 Women, edited by Geoff Blackwell; authored a chapter in Living Precariously, edited by Christina Lee and Susan Leong; and co-authored American Mother, her memoir, with writer Colum McCann.

Before founding JWFLF, Diane worked for 18 years as a community health nurse and family nurse practitioner. She earned both her undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of New Hampshire and has received honorary degrees from Marquette University and Seton Hall University.

She is active in her Roman Catholic parish, Saints Mary and Joseph Parish in Salem, New Hampshire, and lives in Massachusetts with her husband, Dr. John W. Foley. She is the mother of four surviving children and grandmother of eight.