About ICVolunteers

The first seeds for ICVolunteers were planted in 1997, when Viola Krebs led the recruitment of more than 800 volunteers to help coordinate and report on the 12th World AIDS Conference in Geneva (Switzerland). Following the success of this event, individuals who wanted to continue to work together formed an ongoing team of conference organizers and volunteers. In 1999, "International Conference Volunteers" (ICV), an international non-governmental organization based in Geneva, was founded to provide a permanent structure for its work.

Growth of Our Network and Activities

Since its foundation, ICVolunteers has continued to help produce local, national and international conferences on today's most important social, humanitarian, environmental and scientific issues. Our efforts have been possible thanks to the support of our donors and members, as well as our fundamental base, our current network of volunteers.

Over the years, ICVolunteers has developed certain complementary initiatives and programs, always based around our core mission of catalyzing volunteers to help organizers of worthy projects around the globe to promote a better, more equitable and fairer society across all fields and sectors.

United Nations Recognition

In 2003, ICVolunteers obtained associative status with the Department of Public Information of the United Nations (DPI). In 2005, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC) granted ICVolunteers special consultative status. This recognition has given us greater direct access to UN conferences and events, enabling us to provide our services more quickly and efficiently and contribute actively to UN discussions.

Geographic Expansion

As ICVolunteers has grown, our activities have become more decentralized. While an important part of our work continues to take place in and around Geneva, we now have offices and representatives in a number of other parts of the world.

Creation of ICVolunteers Federation

Feeling the need to adapt our institutional framework to our increasing portfolio of field activities, ICVolunteers launched in October 2005 a new organizational structure, transforming itself into an international federation with national offices and associate partners in various parts of the world.