With the March 22, 2010 response email issued from ICF President, Giovanna D’Alessio, and sent to signatories (http://icfcoachestakeastand.org/ICF-AnswersToICFCTAS.pdf), ICF Coaches Take a Stand has fulfilled its original mission of receiving an official response from the ICF specifically related to the 7 requests as outlined in the September 30, 2009 letter to the ICF Board of Directors. Therefore, ICF Coaches Take a Stand has now placed its website on an inactive status (i.e., no longer collecting signatures) and the website will remain publically in place at least through the end of 2010.

Your courage in taking a stand for our shared passion for excellence and the future of coaching has indeed created opportunities for our profession and for ICF.

Clearly, ICF has taken steps to more transparently communicate with members. Yet, there remains much work to be done. Below the requests made in the September 30th letter to the ICF Board of Directors and how the ICF President responded:

1. The request to table the decision to move to a single ICF ISO credential and put an immediate halt to the implementation process of the proposed transition schema was honored and the single ICF ISO credential decision was deferred until January 2012.
2. The request to retain and continue to promote the existing credentialing system of three levels of ICF certification: ACC, PCC and MCC was honored; at the same time, the request to improve the branding of the credential distinction levels was not addressed.
3. The request to sponsor the first Town Hall Meeting with an Open Microphone Format about ICF Credentialing at the Annual Membership Meeting at this year‘s 2009 ICF Conference in Orlando, engaging in a dialog between ICF general membership and the ICF Board of Directors, so that members‘ concerns are expressed, heard, received and recorded in an open forum that promotes discussion and healthy debate was addressed with a “Lunch and Learn Meeting” and a recording of that meeting was made available.
4. The request to begin a collaborative, open dialog with all ICF members to understand, explore and participate in the decision making processes related to creating the future of the ICF credentialing system was honored.
5. The request to follow the ICF Town Hall Meeting with a series of Open Town Hall ICF Membership Meetings, on a web platform that allows for instant message chats, providing the opportunity for our worldwide members to speak, weigh in and have their voices heard and taken into account in the final decisions being made was honored to the extent of offering “Real Talk with the Board” conference calls; the use of advanced technologies to communicate with members was not addressed.
6. The request to establish a Coaching Knowledge Base Advisory Board of qualified individuals, as well as strategic organizational and academic partners, to work closely with the ICF Board of Directors to assess and examine the coaching body of knowledge that can be annotated and tested for validity and reliability was not honored; instead, ICF President 2010 Giovanna D’Alessio committed to appoint a task force to address the subject of body of knowledge no later than May 2010.
7. The request to formulate, document and implement an ICF Leadership Transparency Plan was partially addressed as follows:
   1. the request to allow members a greater window and input into their own organization‘s governance and the decision making process at the Board and Committee Leadership levels was addressed with a commitment to share with members ICF Board member agenda and outcomes in addition to continuing the practice of a 60-day comment period before making “substantial” decisions; ‘substantial decisions’ was not defined.
   2. the request to provide credentialed membership referenda for voting on key decisions related to the future of our credentials was denied.
   3. the request to establish a management control and membership survey mechanism for the Board and ICF members to periodically and transparently evaluate and track each others‘ collaborative relationship effectiveness over time was partially addressed. Membership surveys were addressed and management control was not addressed.

ICF Coaches Take A Stand

What it's all about

The ICF Board of Directors decided to dissolve the three tiered credentialing system into a single credential. The purpose of this website is to be a repository of signatures of those ICF credentialed and member coaches who wish to join the grass roots effort in voicing their opposition to the ICF ISO single credential.

The September 30, 2009 Letter to the Board of Directories was neither conceived nor written by a handful of people. As this website launched, over 80 ICF Coaches (MCCs, PCCs, ACCs as well as non-member credentialed coaches and member coaches) from around the world had contributed to and participated in this effort.