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HIV Collaborative Fund
Voting Summary (Elevator Pitch):
Shouldn't people living with AIDS be involved in figuring out how AIDS money is spent? We raise the money. People living with HIV/AIDS around the world decide where the money goes through a process relying on social networking and technology.
Supporting organization:
Tides Center and Tides Foundation (Tides Network)
URL:
www.hivcollaborativefund.org
City:
New York
State/Region:
NY
Country:
USA
Project Vision Statement & Potential Social Impact:
The HIV Collaborative Fund believes that the stakeholders of the AIDS epidemic, people living with and affected with HIV/AIDS in developing communities, should be the primary decision makers and contributors on how AIDS funding should be prioritized and distributed within their regions and communities. We believe our work will connect AIDS activists from around the world through technology and common interests. We use our network and funds to educate communities on AIDS and prepare developing regions for AIDS treatment, prevention and relevant issues. Our goal is to reach small grassroots organizations in developing countries in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe/Baltics/Central Asia, Caribbean and Latin America. The Fund offers them direct funding as well as a chance to be involved in a growing collaborative effort to respond to diverse needs in the global AIDS movement.
Sustainability (financial) model:
Our financial model is structured so that most of our funds are spent within developing regions for grantmaking and grantmaking activities. We distribute:
1. $200,000 in each of our 10 regions for grantmaking to grassroots community groups.
2. $50,000 in each region for technical assistance
3. $50,000 in each region to develop network support.
4. $10,000 in each region for monitoring and evaluation.
We also hire one contractor and a coordinating organization within each region to carry out activities such as activist meetings. This cost may vary depending on the region.
Our back office support including grants and financial administration is provided by the Tides Network with 31 years of experience. Our direct administration costs are very small as we support only 3 staff members. We have a large and diverse base of donors ranging from corporate foundations, private foundations, community foundations, government agencies from around the world, family trusts and individuals.
Potential obstacles:
We believe that the potential obstacles are:
1. Technology - our project is outgrowing the limits of our current technology (email, Skype, cell phones, text, websites, etc.). We need new and innovative ways of communicating with over 400 organizations based in developing communities around the world.
2. Limited staff - We need more staff to keep up with the administrative needs of our growing regions.
3. Engagement - We face major future obstacles in keeping our volunteers engaged as their time is challenged by work, family and personal health issues.
4. Turnover - A terrible consequence of the epidemic is that many of our members may sucuumb to AIDS related illness. We must face the emotional fallout and the organizational challenges of continuing their great work.
5. Growth - We are constrained by donor restrictions on our funding as most money is earmarked for grantmaking and grantmaking activities. This could potentially hinder the project from growing as we cannot create the proper technological and administrative infrastructure to develop our project and communicate with our grantees.
6. Training - As our project grows, we need to train our volunteers and contactors on new technological tools that would make our project more efficient.
Resource Needs:
Our main resource needs revolve around communication and technology. We would love:
1. Better organizational website
- To accomodate poor internet connections
- Better ways to show our pictures/stories/videos
- Password protected portion to distribute internal documents to our activists who are based in several different cities.
- Online website evaluation tools to survey grantees remotely
2. Networking
- Find ways to promote social networking among our activists in different regions through chat/blogging/other tools
3. Language
- Find ways to integrate different languages into our website and online materials.
4. Marketing
- Creating polished marketing materials for donors and grantees.
5. Connectivity
- Find different ways to communicate with our grantees and staff in remote regions.
6. Server
- A local server to store our materials as we are currently working off of a remote connection.
7. Internet Connection
- getting quality internet connections for our contractors in the 10 regions.
8. Regional Websites
- develop websites for treatment materials and information in each region.
9. IT support
- We would like a part-time IT staff person dedicated to the growing needs of our project. Currently, we rely on an IT department from our sponsor that caters to several projects and provides basic support.
Key Milestones:
Our milestones in the next 90 days are:
- Collect grants information and conduct due diligence for grantees in Southeast Asia, Southern Africa region, China and West Africa regions through email, phone, fax and DHL.
- Distribute grants for the Southeast Asia, Southern Africa region, China and West Africa regions through bank wires.
- Caribbean Regional Advisory Board meeting in Jamaica to talk about advocacy priorities in the Caribbean region.
- Southern Africa Regional Advisory Board conference call and chat via digital service provider.
- Engage new funding partners for next grant cycles.
- Facilitate and negotiate our timelines and budgets for the Community Panel Meetings in all 10 regions through meetings, emails and listservs.
- Plan, develop and begin revised evaluation plan for grantees including an evaluation database and web based surveys.
- Hire new Program Assistant for New York and consultant for East Africa region.
- Report to donors on progress of projects.
- Streamline our current procedures in a standard operating manual created trhough email/chat collaboration with our members.
- All regions discuss and develop technical assistance priorities for each region. Develop regional technical assistance plans and budgets.
- Distribute technical assistance money to 10 regions and carry out technical assistance plans.
- Convene a donor's meeting in a central location.
- Convene a staff and regional coordinators meeting in a central global location.
Project Summary:
Putting the power in the hands of a social network of global AIDS activists, the HIV Collaborative Fund provides funding to small grassroots organizations in 10 regions around the world (Caribbean, Latin America, East Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa, Eastern Europe/Central Asia, China, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Women & Families in Africa).
Using an innovative model, the HIV Collaborative Fund supports organizations that are typically too small to receive funds from major foreign donors. Our model relies on the grant decisions and priorities being made by a panel of AIDS activists living and working in each region. Volunteer AIDS activists based in several countries/cities/towns/villages around the world monitor the activities of our grantees and notify us of progress and problems. We continue to provide funding to organizations in high conflict areas such as Somalia, Zimbabwe and Nepal. We access difficult to reach communities with the help of our volunteer activists based in towns and cities closeby. Technology such as cell phones, email and chat have helped our network communicate and reach other grantees. We hope to grow our volunteer activists and grantee organizations so that they may develop their own donor relationships. Our ultimate goal is to help each region stand on its own so that there is no need for our project. We hope that our work prepares communities to accept and properly administer treatment medication and possibly an AIDS cure if a cure is developed.
The HIV Collaborative Fund developed in response to recommendations from the International Treatment Preparedness Summit (ITPS), a historic 2003 meeting of AIDS treatment activists from 67 countries representing each region of the world. The ITPS recommendations called for better use of community expertise in developing treatment access and literacy programs, more control to HIV-affected communities in setting funding priorities, and stronger relationships among community advocates and donors. Tides Foundation, a U.S.-based public charity, initiated the HIV Collaborative Fund in partnership with the ITPS participants. A pilot project ran for one year in the Eastern Europe/Central Asia/Baltics region. The success of the pilot project led to funding by the World Health Organization to expand into 7 more regions (Caribbean, Latin America, East Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia). A corporate foundation provided the funds to expand into 1 more region and develop an issue area: China and Women and Families in Africa.
In each of 10 funding regions, the HIV Collaborative Fund conducted planning workshops. These workshops created treatment preparedness agendas and set the stage for grant making. Community members then formed grant review panels to set funding priorities and develop and review grant applications. In each region, $200,000 was distributed in small grants for education and advocacy projects. To date, funding has been provided to approximately 400 community organizations in over 66 countries. Each region also selects a Coordinator to facilitate regional network development and the grant making process. Funding is also distributed in each region for technical assistance and network support.
The World Health Organization funded an independent evaluation of the project which reported an overwhelmingly positive outcome. The evaluation from LTG Evaluators, Inc. may be accessed at out website at www.hivcollaborativefund.org.
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