Grants That Make a Difference
November 1, 2007
"Grants that Make a Difference" highlights grants given to Southeastern organizations that have helped make a difference in people's lives. Getting the grant is only the beginning of the story. At least once a month, "Grants That Make a Difference" will profile these important grants and what their recipients are doing with them.
In response to a growing HIV/AIDS crisis, the National AIDS Fund has announced a total of $1.8 million in grants for a new initiative to provide grants and assistance to community-based organizations in nine southern states.
The initiative, Southern REACH, is designed to broaden and strengthen communities' capacity to address HIV/AIDS in marginalized, at-risk populations such as women and African Americans. During the first round of grantmaking, NAF will award twenty to thirty grants averaging $45,000 to nonprofits in Alabama, Arkansas, northern Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Recognizing that capacity building often requires more than financial resources, the grants will be accompanied by technical assistance designed to help maximize the success of the grantees. The effort will be supported by an initial $1.55 million grant from the Ford Foundation and $250,000 from the Elton John AIDS Foundation — both longtime funders of NAF.
The Ford Foundation's support of Southern REACH builds on its existing investment in NAF's Gulf Coast HIV/AIDS Relief Fund. The Elton John AIDS Foundation partners with NAF to fund hundreds of HIV-prevention programs across the country as well as other special initiatives.
Eight of the top 10 states in which the highest percentage of African Americans who have AIDS live are in the South, according to the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics. In all of those states, the majority of people who have AIDS are African American. Six of the top 10 states in which the highest percentage of women who have AIDS live are in the South, according to the CDC.
Through Southern REACH, the National AIDS Fund will provide general operating program grants to strategically positioned community-based organizations that have demonstrated ability to reach priority populations with HIV prevention and care services or to lead policy and advocacy efforts.
An emphasis will be placed on including community-based organizations that have strong access to priority at-risk populations, which include public health and social justice organizations that may not have HIV/AIDS work as their primary mission and may not regularly access traditional HIV/AIDS funding streams. Priority populations include communities of color; expanding immigrant communities and migrant workers; gay and bisexual men; transgendered persons; women; high-risk youth; people in prison; the homeless; and those fighting drug addiction, particularly injection drug use.
"HIV/AIDS is more than a disease — it is a symptom of the larger problems of social inequalities and racial/ethnic health disparities," said NAF president and CEO Kandy Ferree. "Nowhere are such issues more prevalent in the U.S. than in the South. The National AIDS Fund is primed to lead this philanthropic strategy to broaden and strengthen community HIV/AIDS resources across the southern United States, but we can't do this alone. We need individuals, corporations, and foundations to demonstrate leadership to help tackle this critical health crisis."
Applications for funding from community-based organizations will be due November 16, 2007, 5 p.m., EST. Grant decisions will be made with the guidance of a panel of diverse experts from the region. For more information, visit www.aidsfund.org.
Grantmaker Contact Information:
Grantmaker Name: National AIDS Fund
Year Founded: 1952
Address: 1030 15th St. N.W., Ste. 860
Washington, DC 20005-1511
Phone: 202-408-4848
URL: http://www.aidsfund.org
The selection of organizations for the "Grants that Make a Difference" is based on criteria such as programmatic interests, geographic focus, and size of funding programs to ensure the broadest possible representation of the region's nonprofit sector.
If you'd like to see support for your organization featured in "Grants that Make a Difference," e-mail a detailed description of the grant, including the name and contact information of the funder and of your organization, the amount given, and how the grant made a difference. For your convenience, we have provided a template to follow. We welcome press releases in addition to, or as a substitute for, the information in the template.
Email the description or press release to
atweb@foundationcenter.org, with "Grants that Make a Difference" in the subject line.
Recipient Name:
Project Name:
Organization Mission and how it relates to the project:
Beneficiaries or Community Impact:
Funding Partner(s): (Grantmaker Names)
Grant Amount:
Recipient Contact: Name, Address, Phone, Fax, E-mail, URL
Grantmaker Contact: Name, Address, Phone, Fax, E-mail, URL
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