IAF Affiliation

ICON (Inland Communities Organizing Network) is a member organization of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF)

IAF History

The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) was founded in 1940 by Saul Alinsky and his associates in order to coordinate the work of organizing in poor urban communities, beginning in Chicago, in the United States. IAF provided training to would-be organizers and leaders emerging from those communities.  From 1938 until his death in 1972, Alinsky organized in the poorest neighborhoods of industrially-based cities. He developed and was developing what would become the principles of building people power that today permeates every organization – conservative to radical – that is working for mass change.  The IAF became the primary means for Alinsky to train people, teach power and work for substantive change in the nation’s political, economic and cultural systems.

IAF Today

The IAF is an international network of 59 affiliates in 21 states of the USA and in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia. Today’s IAF is concerned primary in building citywide and regional organizations. Our primary purpose is to build the power of the people: the capacity, ability and willingness to act in order to bring about social change. ICON and our affiliates are both non-ideological and strictly non-partisan.  But we are committed to building an engaged base within our democracies. We are religious institutions, unions, schools, non-profits, and more.
The IAF develops organizations that use the power of people and their institutions  – organized people and organized money – in effective ways to transform their communities and cities.  The secret to the success of IAF organizations lies in their commitment to identify, recruit, train and develop leaders in every corner of every community where IAF works.

The Southwest Regional Organization can be found at http://www.swiaf.org/