The Washington Blade - Friday, April 23, 1999
Peter Freiberg

Philanthropic support for AIDS programs -- support that was critical in the epidemic's early years and remains important today -- is declining markedly, according to a just-released Gallup survey.

The survey, commissioned by Funders Concerned About AIDS (FCAA), a nonprofit group that seeks to marshal the philanthropic response to AIDS, was conducted last year among 276 U.S. foundation, corporate, and other grantmakers who have either given to AIDS programs or expressed interest in AIDS issues.

The survey noted that the1998 Foundation Grants Index reported that, from 1996 to 1997, funding for AIDS prevention, treatment, and research dropped $7 million -- from $37 million to $30 million, a decrease of 19 percent -- despite an increase of 15.5 percent in overall philanthropic giving from 1996 to 1997.

While later figures are not yet available, said FCAA executive director Paulo Di Donato, "There is nothing to indicate that the 1998 figure will be higher than 1997, and one would expect that to point to another decline [in 1999]."

The FCAA survey, which examined AIDS funding trends for 1997 and 1998 along with projections for expected 1999 grantmaking, found that a "core group" of funders that has provided the bulk of the philanthropic response is shrinking.

Of the 276 grantmakers surveyed, 27 percent gave $50,000 or more for AIDS-related projects in 1998. But over the three-year survey period, the number in this "core group" declined 22 percent, while 40 percent of "core group" members say AIDS is not a high priority for their organization.

In the overall group of 276 organizations, the percentage of funders that reported making any AIDS-related grants declined from 59 percent in 1997 to 53 percent in 1998, with only 46 percent indicating they intend to make such grants in 1999-- a 21 percent decrease over the three-year period.

"There is no question that the gap is increasing between all forms of HIV/AIDS funding, including philanthropic funding," said FCAA executive director Paul Di Donato, "and the needs created by HIV/AIDS.

"Many grantmakers have made enormous efforts to respond to AIDS," Di Donato said. "The fact that there is a noticeable decline in support, even among committed grantmakers, indicates that the problem in the broader philanthropic community is probably even greater than these data show."

Asked in a telephone press conference how the need for philanthropic support for AIDS programs compares with what is available, FCAA officials said they couldn't estimate the total gap.

But Len McNally of the New York Community Trust, which manages an AIDS fund, said, "We get three to five times as many fundable proposals as we can fund. In New York, we could easily use three times as much money as we have available each year."

In the early years of the epidemic, philanthropic funding played an especially crucial role in combating AIDS. With federal as well as most state and local funding virtually non-existent, "private philanthropy was often the first source of funds to create AIDS-specific services," says former Apple Computer executive and FCAA chair Fred Silverman.

Some foundations, said Silverman, have funded programs that governments were unwilling or unable to back, such as needle exchange and sexually explicit AIDS education projects. Corporations have been visible in activities like AIDS walks. And the private sector has also contributed to AIDS advocacy programs that led to more government funding.

Daniel Zingale, executive director of AIDS Action, a Washington-based coalition of AIDS groups that lobbies the federal government on AIDS issues, said a key reason for "the extraordinary success of the community-based response to AIDS in America" is that it was "a partnership between government and the private sector."

That "partnership" helped sustain AIDS funding even after the Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, Zingale said. Conservatives, he said, like the idea that government money "is being matched to some extent by the private sector and [local] communities.

"It is an ominous sign and reason for concern," Zingale said, "that the private dollars are diminishing in any way at a time when there are more people than ever living with HIV disease."

Zingale said philanthropic giving has been focused on the needs of clients.

"To the extent that dollars are walking away," he said, "it will hit most directly at client services, including prevention."

At AIDS Action, Zingale said, about one-third of its current operating budget of $2.2 million comes from foundations and corporations, one-third from dues paid by its 3,200 member organizations, and the final one-third from individuals and events.

While AIDS Action's own budget has "held steady or even grown a little bit" in recent years, Zingale said, a drop in philanthropic giving to member groups would affect what they are able to pay.

In Boston, Larry Kessler, executive director of the AIDS Action Committee, a service organization, said that, while about $500,000 of his organization's budget comes from corporations, "we have never done very well with foundations."

Foundations, Kessler said, were often timid about funding AIDS programs, especially controversial ones. Many foundations, he said, "have made big bucks in the last year or two in the stock market and, if they're serious about the epidemic, they have to do more."

The Gallup Institute survey said it did not find one lone explanation for the downward trend in philanthropic funding but instead suggested several factors, including "donor fatigue" among longterm AIDS grantmakers.

Several organizations, the survey reported, said they have decreased support for AIDS due to an overall change in funding strategy. For example, one organization moved away from disease-specific health issues toward focusing on improving the overall system of health care.

The survey noted that the decline in philanthropic funding for AIDS is occurring even though levels of new HIV infections remain high domestically and are "exploding" in the developing countries.

But while 95 percent of people with HIV live in the developing world, only 12 percent of the grantmakers surveyed fund HIV efforts internationally.

Some funders blamed the AIDS service organizations in part for some of the funding decline, saying they had become too bureaucratized to deal creatively with changes in the epidemic.

"The dilemma presented here," the survey said, "is that some funders indicate that the most established and well-funded organizations are the least capable of innovation and risk-taking. Yet, these very organizations report that it is private dollars that encourages and enables them to take risks."
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