Mission:

ICA's mission is to support sustainable development in India by partnering with dedicated non-government organizations (NGO's) and individuals.

Indians for Collective Action (ICA) is a San Francisco Bay Area nonprofit group. ICA believes in a secure life for every Indian, in a sustainable environment and a just society. Since our inception in 1968, we have nurtured social activists, spawned numerous initiatives including Asha for Education and Foundation for Excellence, and supported innovative community-led development projects in over 20 states of India and disbursing over $5.0 million (mostly in last decade). We partner with dedicated social workers and activists in India and the U.S. ICA has been searching for a best way to engage social sector in India and create right impact in India. They have a more than 4 decade of experience and connection with India’s development center. However, as times have changed we would like to create an open source platform to engage right set of social partners (NGOs and Social Enterprises) and US professionals.

ICA aims to inspire professional who have spent decent time in corporate world or students specializing in social entrepreneurship, design or international development. Our main aim is to engage young, ideal, and professional in finding sustaining solutions for development sector. Several US based professionals with a previous start up, energy institution, semiconductor industry and healthcare solutions went to India this winter to visit SEWA and other leading organizations. And they found the answer - “The best way to use their knowledge would be to empower these leading organizations and help them succeed instead of creating any new models”. Social sectors need lot of selfless givers who should use their professional skills to redesign their social operations to be competitive. Human centric design can play a very important role – case in example “Aravind Eye as a world’s best business case of compassion”.

ICA is building collaborative open source platform aimed at inspiring, collaborating and empowering social sector through human centric design and their professional skills.
ICA is looking to provide a best way to reduce poverty. By actively getting engaged with social organizations like SEWA, there is a best chance to come up with sustaining (long lasting) solutions. We aim to strategically connect deeper professional skills gaps within these organizations by substituting professional support. Though this work can be a bridge till “destination” organization develops own internal skill ladder, it is still a necessity. We believe this is a most important element of social leadership building.

Goals

  • Provide Seed Funding and support to NGOs in India
  • Support training of volunteers for community work in India
  • Encourage future social activists and community leaders for work in India
  • Enable inter-NGO collaboration
  • Involve local communities (U.S.)

Priority Areas

  • Poverty Alleviation
  • Sustainable Integrated Development
  • Self-Help Groups
  • Watershed Projects
  • Community Health & Welfare
  • Women’s Empowerment
  • Environment
  • People’s movement

ICA Over 40 years

Structure

ICA is comprised of volunteer members from the SF bay area who form the Executive committee. A President who serves a one-year term, and is eligible for a total of two consecutive terms, and is elected by the Committee heads it.

A Project Selection& Monitoring Committee is composed of Exec.Comm. members and other volunteers and acts to advise the Executive committee about development trends relevant to ICA’s mission & goals; about priority development concerns and help guide the funding of selected projects. Meetings are held every quarter

Values

We support initiatives which:

  • Are aimed at poverty alleviation
  • Are non-sectarian and non-political
  • Focus on rural communities and projects with least access to resources
  • Emphasize women and children’s issues
  • Are innovative, sustainable, scalable and replicable

 We will

  • Maintain a non-sectarian and non-political organization
  • Bring diversity to ICA membership
  • Value quality over growth
  • Act with respect, trust and acceptance

Current Working Groups

  • Fund Development
  • Outreach
  • Web Site maintenance
  • Building Alliances with other non-profits

i) Projects Committee:
Tasks - Review and approve projects for ICA support, recommend project funding, assign project champions and monitor and report on progress of projects.

ii) PR Committee:
Tasks - Website updates, Annual Report, Newsletters, PR, ICA presentation and messages, donor communication

iii) Fund-raising Committee:

Tasks - Public events/programs, Fund raising and Award dinners, Talks by Activists, Donor events, fund raising mailing/appeals

iv) Finance and Administration Committee:

Tasks - Keep accounts and do annual IRS filings, acknowledge donations via receipts/thank you's, maintain databases and e-mail lists, keep ICA current with Secretary of State, maintain correspondence and records, mailings and phone call follow-up

v) Alliance and Partnerships Committee:

Tasks - Maintain communication with other development groups, develop jointly supported programs, and improve communication and cooperation with other groups.