According to the IHC website, the organization's mission was "to ensure the survival of the human race beyond 2012." The IHC went public in 2009 after three decades of scientific research based on the belief that world would experience cataclysmic disasters in 2012.
According to the fictitious IHC's website, business leaders and former government officials met in Timaru, New Zealand, in 1978 to determine threats to humanity. These powerful people, faced with impending disaster in 2012, decided to form the IHC with two goals in mind: to ensure humanity's survival and to prepare for the doomsday events of 2012.
The imagined IHC organization's website also offers an equal opportunity for people to survive the destructive events of 2012 through a survival lottery. The IHC claims that spots are filling up quickly and encourages visitors to submit a lottery entry to secure a chance at survival.