International Facility Management Assoc

Ifma offers a wide variety of professional development products and services. This includes quality educational programming at conferences around the world, support for accredited degree programs and its own world-renowned certifications and credential programs. For example, thousands of professionals have earned the certified Facility manager (cfm) which is a competency-based certification program for Facility managers. Thousands more have earned the Facility Management professional (fmp) and sustainability Facility professional (sfp).

The association conducts industry research and publishes research reports, benchmarks and white papers that support the Facility Management industry. In addition, ifma publishes the bimonthly fmj magazine in print and online along with an online fm buyer's guide and a variety of electronic industry newsletters.

Through support of industry conferences and events around the world including the world workplace conference and expo - ifma is driving the emergence of a global fm community. This is also evident through collaborative partnerships with other fm and built environment organizations working to unify and integrate the fm community.

Ifma is the largest and most widely recognized professional association for Facility Management, supporting approximately 24,000 members worldwide, who are represented by 130 chapters, 16 councils, and 7 communities of practice. Councils and communities allow approximately 5,500 members to go in-depth with benchmarking, best practices sharing, networking, research and education specific to the type of Facility or industry in which they manage facilities. Ifmas online community at engage.ifma.org is the virtual hub of council activity, providing discussion forums and electronic resource sharing. Councils also meet face-to-face annually to build their personal networks and participate in various educational offerings, again specific to the type of Facility managed. The association has established presences on key social networking media sites, including facebook, linkedin, twitter, youtube and flickr. Ifma has received recognition as the sole provider of Facility Management education in the peoples republic of china. Ifma integrates the balanced scorecard methodology into it's strategic planning process to better achieve it's strategic priorities in serving the Facility Management community. Ifma has added staff and other resources to strengthen its partnerships with u.s. government agencies and related organizations, especially in meeting their educational needs with ifma resources, courses and credentials. Ifma's government relations includes communications with members of congress or their staffs to understand their concerns and to discuss issues of importance to ifma. Ifma has undertaken collaborative efforts with other organizations with knowledge or resources that compliment those of the association, including the global Facility Management association, the british institute of faclities Management, fma australia, the european Facility Management network, fm netherlands, bulgaria fma, the u.s. green buildings council, the american society for healthcare engineering and the u.s. environmental protection agency's energy star program.