Strategic Grantmaking
Addressing stigma in all its forms.
Today, HIV is a chronic, manageable condition for many Americans. Despite significant progress in care and treatment, however, HIV-related stigma remains a significant challenge in the South. For those of us living with HIV, stigma is associated with negative health outcomes like poor medication adherence and missed medical appointments. As a result, fewer of us receive timely medical care and treatment, fewer of us have our virus suppressed, and too many of us are missing out on the opportunity to preserve our health and avoid transmitting the virus to our partners. For those of us at risk for HIV, fear of stigma and discrimination often impacts our willingness to even get tested.
Addressing stigma in all its forms – from our lawmakers, our providers, our communities, and even within ourselves – is essential to improving the health of people living with HIV and, ultimately, ending the HIV epidemic in the South. As a Gilead COMPASS Initiative Coordinating Center, we provide community grants to organizations across the South to do just that.
To get an overview of our grantmaking portfolio, please click here. To learn more about our grant opportunities, please click below.
Available Grants
Spark! Grants
We know that the stigma we experience often results from ignorance, fear-based myths, and a general lack of awareness in our communities. Public marketing campaigns were once an important strategy for changing knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors around HIV and AIDS. Unfortunately, these campaigns and other community-level education initiatives are scarce in the Deep South, and their messages often do not reflect the landmark scientific advances that have transformed what it means to live with HIV. These campaigns and initiatives are key in removing the veil of shame and fear that has far too long existed around HIV prevention and care.
In response to the absence of such campaigns and education initiatives in the Deep South, the Southern AIDS Coalition introduced SPARK! (Southerners Promoting Awareness, Resources & Knowledge), a grant program to fund community-led campaigns and education initiatives across the Deep South. With this program, we are turning to you – community-based organizations with the ability to implement grassroots approaches to reach the communities you serve. Applicants will choose one of two tracks:
SPARK! Connections supports programs that combat social isolation and loneliness through virtual programming. Organizations are invited to apply for support to cover costs related to implementing virtual groups, 1:1 support, social media outreach, texting programs, and other means of engagement serving persons living with and impacted by HIV.
SPARK! Change supports community-level education addressing HIV-related stigma. Successful funded projects have ranged from media campaigns to community conversations. The common thread across successful projects has been the commitment to centering the voices of those living with and impacted by HIV in all aspects of project design and implementation.
Transformative Grants
Our Transformative grants fund the design, implementation, and evaluation of interventions to reduce internalized HIV-related stigma (i.e., shame) in the Deep South. Ultimately, our goal is to identify scalable and fundable interventions that are effective and capable of being replicated elsewhere in the South.
Transformative Grants are focused on supporting the development and implementation of programs and activities that address the four programmatic focuses of the Gilead COMPASS Initiative® Coordinating Centers, including organizational capacity building; wellbeing, mental health, trauma-informed care, substance use, and telehealth; faith based advocacy; and HIV-related stigma reduction. The maximum amount an applicant can request is $100,000 (including overhead). Southern AIDS Coalition funds partners in HIV-related stigma reduction with a focus on supporting the design, implementation, and evaluation of those interventions to reduce HIV-related stigma.
Other Compass Initiative Grants
To learn about other Compass Initiative grants, please click the link below.
