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The Ethics and Compliance Officers Association (ECOA) is a "nonprofit organization" (an organization that serves some social purpose and whose main goal is not to make money) whose "members" (people who belong to an organization) represent individuals who are responsible for their organization's "ethics" (rules about how one should behave), "compliance" (following the law), and business "conduct" (how one behaves) programs.

The organization tries to be the world leader in providing information and "resources" (useful materials) related to ethics, compliance, and "corporate governance" (how companies are structured and operated). The organization also provides "forums" (places where people can interact and share ideas) for its members to exchange ideas and "strategies" (planned ways of doing things) with each other.

The organization has four values: "integrity" (doing the right thing), "confidentiality" (not sharing private or confidential information), "collegiality" (being polite and friendly toward others), and "cooperation" (working together).

ECOA "stems from" (began as) a 1991 meeting of 30 "ethics officers" (a person whose job is to make sure that a company or organization behaves well and does the right thing) who wanted to create a new organization for discussions on the topics that interested them most. These people believed that an ethics officer is extremely important in "ensuring" (making sure) that a company is run ethically.

Today, many leading companies and organizations are members of ECOA. They include American Express, Dow Corning, Dun & Bradstreet, General Electric, Honeywell, the Internal Revenue Service, Levi Strauss, and Texas Instruments, among others.