| General Guidelines |
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| Guidelines for Funding HIV & AIDS Projects |
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The following guidelines should be used as a way to focus grant funding on areas where the foundation can have a significant impact given the changing face of the epidemic, the multiple providers and funders involved, and the broad range of needs. These guidelines represent overall priorities for funding, not absolute rules about what can and cannot be funded. Extraordinary circumstances and/or an extraordinary grant proposal, for example, might result in funding a non-priority activity. The guidelines should be reexamined on an annual basis to assess their match with current needs.
- New funding should address the needs of high risk and underserved populations where current HIV/AIDS transmission is concentrated. These include women, adolescents, undocumented immigrants, and men of color who have sex with men. Program strategies to address these priority populations should represent interventions that are accessible, acceptable and effective within these cultures. Applicant organizations should demonstrate that they have experience working with these populations and legitimacy within the high risk communities.
- Projects requesting funding for direct health care should be considered, especially for the priority populations described above. Direct health care includes primary medical care, home care, hospice care in residences, mental health services, nutritional care, dentistry, day health care, and ancillary health care services such as physical therapy. Case management services should not be a priority, first because of the support of these services by the AIDs Foundation, and second because of the lack of consensus about their scope.
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- Priority should be given to projects that increase the availability of specialty HIV/AIDS health care through primary care networks. This can increase the cost-effectiveness of care overall and accessibility by those
who are unlikely to utilize AIDs-specific agencies or services or through a greater integration of neighborhood clinics with primary care networks.
- Projects requesting funding for supportive services such as peer support should be considered, especially for the priority populations. Homemaker and transportation services are not a priority.
- Volunteer programs should be funded only on a limited basis and only when they meet one or more of the following criteria:
- represent consolidation of volunteer services across agencies
- demonstrate cost-effective delivery of care including adequate recruitment and retention of volunteers
- serve a priority population
- demonstrate an innovative use of volunteers
- provide material support such as food for a food pantry within an already existing program
- Projects with alternative therapies should be considered only if they have a strong research/evaluation component that could produce evidence of impact on health status and/or quality of life outcomes.
- The following types of projects are not recommended for current funding consideration:
- Clinical and biomedical research regarding HIV/AIDs because of the availability of federal and pharmaceutical funding
- Prevention programs because of the availability of state, local and other foundation funding
- Health services research/policy questions such as HIV/AIDS within managed care because of national projects already underway in this area
- Medication coverage for patients because of the enormous cost per patient ($9-12,000 per year)
- All projects should have clearly stated and measurable objectives for which monitoring data can be collected over the course of the project regarding attainment of these objectives.
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