About Us

The International Child Art Foundation (ICAF), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, has served as the leading art and creativity organization for American children and their international counterparts since 1997.

Mission:  To employ the power of the arts for the development of creativity and empathy – key attributes of successful learners and leaders.

Vision: To rejuvenate American ingenuity through a creativity revolution and strengthen U.S. international leadership through America spearheading a global creativity revolution.

Programs:  Key objectives are to reduce violence (Peace through Art), remediate suffering (Healing Arts), and cultivate imagination (Arts Olympiad).  The United States Olympic Committee has granted ICAF an exclusive license to use ‘Arts Olympiad’ and related marks.

Publication:  ChildArt quarterly, a unique magazine to foster creativity and global learning, published since 1998 with no commercial advertisement.

Events:  ICAF hosts the World Children’s Festival and is a world leader in children’s art exhibitions.

Impact:  To-date, approximately 5 million children have directly benefitted from ICAF’s programs and more than 110,000 people have participated in ICAF’s festivals and exhibitions. In the nation’s capital, ICAF provides inner-city children the opportunity to meet, understand and befriend their peers from diverse cultures. At the national level, ICAF identifies imaginative children and inspires them to embrace lifelong creativity and develop empathy – pathways to sustainability and global competitiveness. At the global level, ICAF brings together the world’s creative children, transforms them into peace leaders and ties the knot that may unfold in collaborative innovation.

Award: ICAF Youth Board Members honor creative and empathic corporations and organizations by presenting them the World Children’s Award.  Previous awardees are LEGO and the Kellogg Foundation.

Funding:  ICAF has been supported at one time or another by some of the world’s most creative companies such as Adidas, Disney, Faber-Castell, Hilton, LEGO, Madewell, WACOM, and Yahoo!  ICAF’s programs, festivals and exhibitions are free-of-charge for children and are primarily funded by donations from creative and empathic individuals.

Pedagogy:  Introduce children to the ‘artist-athlete’ ideal of creative mind and healthy body. Develop their imagination and creativity through the arts as well as discipline and teamwork through sports. ICAF is a pioneer in STEAMS education, which integrates arts and sport with science, technology, engineering and math (STEM disciplines), for children’s holistic development.

Advocacy: ICAF advocates that every contemporary art museum dedicate a single room to the live art of children, that corporate headquarters devote a wall that displays children’s artwork, that organizers try to include children’s voices in deliberations on the future, and that a child’s right to be creative and empathic be respected and honored.

Honors:  Recent awards include the 2011 Ziegfeld Award for Outstanding International Leadership in Art Education and the 2011 Distinguished Service Award from the United States Sports Academy.