The Institute of Cultural Affairs is a research, training, and
demonstration group concerned with the human factor in world development.
The ICA is a notforprofit tax exempt corporation chartered
by the state of Illinois. Though headquartered in Chicago, the
ICA has over one hundred offices in major urban centers around
the world. Fiftytwo of these offices are in North American
cities. The area offices of the ICA in the United States are located
in New York City, Houston, San Francisco, and Chicago.
For some fifteen years the Institute of Cultural Affairs was a
program division of the Ecumenical Institute of Chicago, also
a notforprofit corporation chartered in Illinois.
In 1973 the ICA was formally incorporated as a separate yet coordinate
group. The scope of the work of the ICA is broad and varied, ranging
from management seminars for business executives to comprehensive
community development projects in many locations. In all the programs
the emphasis is on effective methodologies relating to human motivity,
corporate operation, and tactical planning.
The programs of the ICA are supported by governmental agencies,
private foundations, major corporations, denominational bodies,
and concerned individuals, as well as from program income. The
Institute of Cultural Affairs operates with two directing boards:
The Board of Trustees and the Board of Consultants. The officers
of the Trustees are listed below. The Consulting Board, a unique
network of more than two hundred business and professional men
and women located throughout the nation, represents many different
fields of expertise. These advisors meet semiannually to
review and plan the specific programs of the Institute.
The research of the ICA relates entirely to its practical program
arenas. Presently there are five major training and demonstration
programs
Community Development, ICA's social demonstration program,
interrelates social and economic development and emphasizes methods
of effective actuation as well as planning. The pilot experiment
for this program is the 5th City project on Chicago's West Side,
now in its second decade. The methods forged in 5th City are being
applied to community development projects from North American
urban centers to Australia's Aboriginal communities and the Marshall
Islands of the Pacific.
LENS, Living Effectively in the New Society, is an innovative
forty-four hour seminar in management planning for corporation
executives and the leadership of other organization! concerned
with operational effectivity. Through uniquely designed "think
tanks," LENS demonstrates the processes of tactical planning,
corporate decisionmaking, and methods of motivity necessary
for effective achievement.
Local Community Forum is a oneday Town Meeting construct
that enables local citizens to participate in the planning and
development of their own community. During the celebration of
the American Bicentennial, five thousand such programs, entitled
Town Meeting '76, are being held across the United States.
Concurrently the project is being replicated in Canada under the
title Community Forum Canada.
Social Methods School is a fiveday training laboratory
in methods of social and institutional change. It deals in depth
with the corporate methods of model building, contradiction analysis,
proposal designing, consensus forging, and group motivity. These
methods for socio-economic development are applicable in both
local communities and a wide variety of business and social organizations.
Planning Consultations of three or more days may be arranged with the ICA staff by corporations, local communities, and other groups. The planning process deals with the organization's unique situation and assists in clarifying definitive goals and in building the necessary comprehensive tactical systems for effective operation toward these objectives.