IFK was founded in Stockholm by two young students (Louis Zettersten and Pehr Ehnemark) that wanted to create a sports association, consisting of a main club in Stockholm with smaller clubs in other parts of the country. This was in a time when no nationwide sports organization or other larger associations existed. An advertisement in the youth paper "Kamraten" (The Comrade) that was published 1 February 1895 called forth all sports interested boys and girls in Sweden to join the society. Less than two months later, clubs in Luleå, Härnösand, Uppsala, Jönköping, Gothenburg and Västerås had been founded, aside the main club in Stockholm. It was decided to name the society after the paper that made the creation possible.