San Francisco Examiner - April 20, 1999
Ulysses Torassa, Examiner Medical Writer

The decline in foundation giving mirrors widespread reports of a steep drop in individual donations hitting AIDS groups in many parts of the country.

Funding for organizations in San Francisco has largely held up, thanks to consistent giving from corporations and individuals. But their counterparts in cities like Boston and New York are facing million-dollar shortfalls and have cut up to a quarter of their staffs. And local groups, such as the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, expect they, too, will be facing significant belt-tightening in the near future.

All are having to adapt to a changing fund-raising climate that includes donor fatigue and the sense that the disease, which is now treatable, is no longer an urgent priority.

"The epidemic is "old news,' " said Jane Breyer, development director for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. "It's getting harder and harder to get people engaged. Folks are burned out."

While the booming stock market led to a record 22 percent increase in foundation giving overall last year, HIV-AIDS funding is going down, the survey found. That's in spite of the fact that health-related grants in general are also up, according to Funders Concerned About AIDS, a group that promotes the cause among foundations.

Of the nearly $16 billion in foundation grants given in 1997, just $30 million went to AIDS-HIV causes. That was down from $37 million in 1996.

The survey commissioned by Funders Concerned About AIDS was presented Tuesday at the group's annual meeting in New Orleans. It found that the core group of philanthropic supporters who give most of the money for AIDS and HIV was shrinking.

Foundations and organizations granting at least $50,000 per year fell 22 percent since 1997, the survey found. Eight percent of those funders told surveyors they expected to cut their AIDS funding this year.

While some foundation officers said they were unimpressed with the quality and quantity of grant proposals from many AIDS groups, others apparently don't feel the disease merits the attention it once did, said Paul DiDonato, executive director of Funders.

More people than ever are living with HIV, and it is spreading like wildfire in parts of the developing world. So it is distressing to see that while overall foundation giving increased 41 percent in the past two years, AIDS funding went down, DiDonato said.

"It's going through the roof, while AIDS grant making - I won't say it's going through the floor, but it is seeing a noticeable, verifiable decline." It isn't just foundation support that is going down. Individual donors aren't giving as much, either.

"It is the topic right now for us, and it has been for some time," said Don Spradlin, associate director for major gifts at Maitri, a San Francisco organization that was founded as a Buddhist hospice for gay men with AIDS.

"The community does not any longer view AIDS as an urgent issue."

With protease inhibitors keeping people with HIV alive much longer, the need for hospice care has diminished, although not disappeared. Spradlin's organization recently shortened its name from Maitri AIDS Hospice and broadened its mission to care for people with HIV who need 24-hour nursing, whether they are facing imminent death or not.

Two other AIDS local service organizations, Project Open Hand and Shanti, combined office space in December to save costs. Shanti Executive Director Bob Rybicki said they also had held the line on salaries and had branched out into training other groups on how to care for people with terminal illnesses. So far, they are doing OK, he said.

The AIDS Foundation also is planning for an expected decline in donations. The organization has already seen a sharp drop in foundation funding, but since that is not its major source of income, the effect has not been severe. Meanwhile, the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York has cut about 25 percent of its staff positions, and the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts is facing a $1million shortfall.

"We are very lucky in the Bay Area," said Breyer of the AIDS Foundation. "Schwab, the Gap, Wells Fargo, Chevron, American Airlines - they were there in the beginning, and they have really stuck by us."

And while AIDS walks and bike rides nationwide have fewer participants in recent years, proceeds from San Francisco's AIDS Walk last year stayed the same - about $3.6million. But that probably won't last, Breyer said.

"I have to be honest with you: I am going into this (summer's) walk assuming we will not" do as well as in the past, she said.

In fact, the foundation, which employs about 100 people, is predicting a marked decrease in donations for the coming fiscal year, and as a result is not planning to fill as many as seven of its staff jobs, said Gustavo Suarez, the foundation's director of communications.

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