About Us
IC&A brings human and entrepreneurial resources to citizens and communities around the world working to transform social contradictions even as they care for the individuals and families devastated by global crises, especially the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Our mission is to develop and deliver innovative community programs that combine positive social impact and economic sustainability. International Consultants and Associates is a registered 501(C)3 nonprofit corporation.
The consultant staff of International Consultants and Associates is a unique amalgam of professional talent, global experience and vocational passion. IC&A’s ten founding consultants share over 300 years of senior-level consulting, training, management and communication experience in more than 50 nations. Many have been pioneers in citizen-focused community capacity building. IC&A consultants have worked and published in the fields of early learning, transforming education and participatory management; helped develop facilitation as a profession and helped found the International Association of Facilitators (IAF); provided international leadership in the global interchange of approaches that work in human development; and created successful community development-based approaches to HIV/AIDS education and prevention. IC&A’s CEO and President, Elizabeth Houde, was one of the first international consultants to help leaders of the Former Soviet Union begin the humanitarian and economic transformation of their societies.
International Consultants and Associates has a deep heritage of visionary service and human compassion. IC&A was founded by former board and staff members of the Institute of Cultural Affairs, an organization and social movement with over 40 years of grassroots work for social justice and human development. The creative energies of literally tens of thousands of course graduates and volunteers were poured into the mobilizing community residents to work for grassroots social transformation during the last half of the 20th century. One of the results of this tremendous outpouring of energy is the Institute of Cultural Affairs International, a network of nationally autonomous, non-sectarian Institutes in 28 nations with which IC&A maintains collegial relationships.
