Overview: Member Participation

ICMA seeks to provide a variety of opportunities to engage members in issues of importance to the organization or to local government in general. The challenges of participation include selecting good topics, making participation easily accessible and affordable, and structuring the participation in a way that is most likely to result in a useful outcome and a sense of accomplishment.

A major vehicle for participation has been serving as a member of a committee or task force. Those activities will continue, but ICMA also is exploring ways to broaden opportunities for engaging members in issues they care about. Recognizing the many demands on members’ time and the range of interests and concerns of individual members, ICMA will experiment with a variety of approaches such as regional forums, focus groups, state partnerships, and e-mail.

Committees and Task Forces

Committees and task forces draw on the skills and interests of a broad cross-section of the membership to study issues of interest and importance to the organization or to local government in general. They also provide an opportunity for member connection and networking. Current ICMA Committees are primarily those with delegated decision-making authority from the board. Task forces have clearly defined tasks and timeframes. The ICMA Executive Board usually considers whether to establish new task forces or committees at its February board meeting.

Members are encouraged to volunteer in the spring, and appointments are made by the president-elect in June. New task forces usually start their work at the annual conference in the fall.

For more information about current committees and task forces and other participation opportunities available to ICMA members, contact membership@icma.org.