For over 35 years, ICMA has maintained international affiliate relationships with local government organizations around the world in pursuit of ICMA’s goals of promoting good governance and its vision of creating thriving communities worldwide.

As part of ICMA’s Global Engagement Strategy, ICMA has developed new relationship categories for our international relationships. This new model, approved by the ICMA Executive Board, focuses on the development of mutually beneficial relationships that allow for global knowledge exchange around best practices in local governance, expansion of organizational networks, creation of opportunities for peer-to-peer or city-to-city exchanges, and development of globally relevant professional development opportunities and resources.

Strategic Alliances

Strategic Alliances are broad, ongoing agreements of mutual collaboration between ICMA and other local government organizations. These relationships may consist of content collaborations through ICMA’s and the organization’s marketing channels, programmatic cooperation in line with each organization’s strategic goals, collaborative product development, or any number of other mutually beneficial opportunities.

Partnerships

Partnerships are short-term, project-based agreements between ICMA and one or more other local government (or related) organizations. These relationships generally revolve around a request to create a specific product, tool, or service. Partnerships can also be formed to apply for/execute grant-funded programs or other short-term requests. Partnerships and Strategic Alliances are not mutually exclusive.

Sponsorships

For information about ICMA Annual Conference sponsorship opportunities or year-round partner packages, please visit the ICMA Annual Partner Program website.

View the ICMA Annual Partner Program

Branches

Branches are semi-autonomous staff driven offices located in different parts of the world. Branches allow for local representation while goals and objectives are directed by staff at the main office.

Chapters

Chapters are semi-autonomous member-driven groups. These groups are generally geographically based and abide by guidelines set forth by the main office. ICMA currently has student chapters around the world.

View ICMA's Student Chapters

If you are interested in an organizational relationship with ICMA, please contact global@icma.org to begin the process.