Washington Blade - May 9, 2003
Lou Chibbaro Jr.

"Interviews with individuals within the Washington, D.C. AIDS community indicate that the organization has marginalized its presence and effectiveness within that community as a result of its adversarial and uncooperative behavior," states a six-page report describing the findings of the review. The report is dated April 19, 2003.

"AIDS Action's presence and visibility in Washington within the AIDS community is either nonexistent or minimal," the report states, "and its previous leadership role as the voice of that community has vanished."

The report, a copy of which was obtained by the Blade, was written by Dennis J. Barbour, a Washington, D.C. attorney and organizational development consultant who specializes in assisting non-profit groups involved in public health issues.

Barbour states in the report that the board chairs of AIDS Action's two component entities - the AIDS Action Council and the AIDS Action Foundation - hired him to conduct the review and make recommendations on how to resolve the organization's "serious management and financial issues."

Ronald Johnson, who serves as deputy director of the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York City, released a written statement calling Barbour's report "unsolicited" and "unauthorized," saying the report reflected Barbour's personal opinions.

"While Mr. Barbour distributed the report to the AIDS Action Foundation board and to the AIDS Action Council board, the report was not considered or discussed by either board," Johnson said in his statement. "The AIDS Action Council board has no further comment on this unsolicited report."

However, two others familiar with the report confirmed the board did request a review.

"The report was requested,"" said David Wexler, the AIDS Action Foundation board chair. "It was authorized. I authorized it. And whether the report was requested or not has nothing to do with what it says."

The second source who confirmed that the report was authorized asked to remain anonymous.

Wexler admitted his group did not address the report at its last meeting, as Johnson asserts.

"It will be considered," he said. "We would be derelict in our duty if we did not consider it. That doesn't mean we will agree with it. But no one is ignoring it."

Leadership turnover, turmoil

Leaders of the nation's local and regional AIDS advocacy groups created AIDS Action in 1987 to serve as the groups' national representative in Washington. During its first decade, AIDS Action worked closely with members of Congress and officials with federal departments and agencies to help develop programs to combat the AIDS epidemic.

But during the past three years, the group has had a succession of executive directors that have come and gone, creating an atmosphere of instability that led to a rapid staff turnover.

In February 2002 the board hired the group's current executive director, Marsha Martin, who had worked in the Clinton administration in several posts, including a position as a top aid to former Secretary of Health & Human Services Donna Shalala.

Although Barbour's report doesn't mention Martin by name, it states that AIDS Action's financial health and its relations with other AIDS groups deteriorated significantly in the past year, during Martin's tenure.

Martin declined to comment on the report, saying it is a matter before the organization's board of directors.

In a Blade interview in February, Martin acknowledged that AIDS Action had suffered from a rapid staff changeover associated with a succession of executive directors beginning in the late 1990s. Martin said she and the group's board put in place a one-year "rebuilding" plan to stabilize the organization and resume its activist role.

Barbour declined to comment on the contents of his report, saying it was intended to remain an internal document. He said he was dismayed that someone leaked the report to the media.

"AIDS Action has historically played a key leadership role by promoting consensus among communities affected by HIV/AIDS and the organizations that represent them," he said in a statement. "Considering the current political and economic realities, the need for strong leadership has never been greater. The HIV public policy community continues to look to AIDS Action to provide it. At its core, AIDS Action remains a vitally important institution for all who are impacted by HIV/AIDS."

According to Barbour's report, AIDS Action's income has declined steadily during the past three to four years. He said the decline in income was largely due to the group's deteriorating relations with its member groups, which have provided the bulk of AIDS Action's income through annual membership dues.

In 2002, Barbour said in his report, AIDS Action's expenses exceeded its income by between $700,000 and $800,000, causing the group to deplete a longstanding reserve fund. Based on budget information provided by the management, Barbour said, the organization is headed for an accumulated deficit of $150,000 by Aug. 31, "even if optimistic revenue projections are met."

He said the group's two component units, AIDS Action Council and the AIDS Action Foundation, are headed for a still greater deficit by the end of the year.

"As of April 15, spending continues at a projected level of over $1.4 million per year, with no cutbacks in expenses apparently planned," Barbour's report states. "At current levels of spending and reasonably anticipated levels of revenue, the organizations will end the year with a combined deficit of over $400,000."

The board for the two entities approved a budget of $1.4 million for AIDS Action in January, but the board revised the budget downward to $1.2 million in March, Barbour said.

AIDS groups abandon NORA

Barbour issued his report three weeks after seven prominent AIDS and public health groups startled activists by dropping out of the National Organizations Responding to AIDS coalition. AIDS Action created the coalition, known as NORA, in 1987 and has served as its official "convener" since that time. The coalition consists of health, labor, religious, professional and advocacy groups working on AIDS-related public policy and legislative issues.

The seven groups that withdrew from the coalition had served as its executive committee and had been doing most of the coalition's work, a source familiar with NORA said.

In a March 27 letter, leaders of the seven groups informed NORA's 175 member organizations that they withdrew from the coalition because they had irreconcilable differences with AIDS Action over how NORA should be operated and managed. At issue was AIDS Action's refusal to consider the groups' proposal to expand the membership of NORA to regional rather than just national organizations working on AIDS issues and to end AIDS Action's role as the coalition's sole convener or titular head.

Among the groups that withdrew as NORA executive committee members were the National Minority AIDS Council, which represents local groups providing AIDS-related services to African-American, Latino, and Asian populations; the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay political group, which also lobbies Congress on AIDS issues; and the National Alliance of State & Territorial AIDS Directors, a highly influential group that heads AIDS or public health offices in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Officials with the groups declined to comment on their action other than to point to their letter as their explanation for withdrawing from NORA.

Martin disputes any suggestion by the groups that dropped out of NORA that AIDS Action has been uncooperative or unresponsive to the NORA membership or the executive committee. She noted that the full NORA membership voted in 1995 to have AIDS Action continue as the NORA convening organization.

Any change in this role, she said, would have to come from the member groups, which totaled 124 as of last year.

"We're just one of nine groups on the NORA executive committee," Martin said. "The executive committee and the member groups make the decisions."

AIDS Action responded to the action by the seven groups by replacing them with a newly appointed interim executive committee and pledging to continue to serve as NORA's convener.

"NORA exists and will continue to play an active role in Washington, D.C.-based AIDS policy," Martin said.

The officials who signed the letter were Caya Lewis, co-chair of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Heath Association; Mark Del Monte of the AIDS Alliance for Children Youth & Families; Matthew McClain of the CAEAR Coalition, which lobbies Congress for social services funds for people with AIDS; John Vezina of HRC; Javier Salazar of the National Minority AIDS Council; Laura Hanen of the National Alliance of State & Territorial AIDS Directors; and Michele Sumilas of the Global Health Council.

The National Association for People with AIDS has also withdrawn from the NORA Coalition, according to NAPWA executive director Terije Anderson.

Although NAPWA was not a member of the NORA executive committee, it has played a key role in the coalition for the past 10 years.

Anderson, like representatives from the other groups that have withdrawn from the coalition, declined to comment, saying the March 27 letter by the executive committee reflected NAPWA's views on the matter.

The letter states that during a lengthy period of discussion, in which executive committee members sought to persuade AIDS Action to agree to structural changes for NORA, "AIDS Action has made it consistently clear that such a process would be made difficult, public and contentious."

"Therefore," the letter states, "it has become the prevailing view of the elected executive committee members that the appropriate course of action is to no longer participate in the NORA coalition and spend our energies fighting the pandemic by organizing coalition efforts anew."

One source familiar with NORA, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the six executive committee groups that withdrew from NORA, along with NAPWA, had been doing almost all of NORA's work during the past several years.

In recent years, the source said, AIDS Action had been devoting less time and resources to NORA business, partially because AIDS Action was grappling with its own internal problems. Without the participation of these seven groups, the source said, it was unlikely that NORA would be able to continue its normal activities of coordinating public policy issues among the nation's leading AIDS groups.

In his report outlining the findings of his review of AIDS Action, Barbour said the decision by the seven groups to withdraw from NORA was "symptomatic" of AIDS Action's problems.

"[I]t is my opinion that an adversarial culture has taken place at the staff level within AIDS Action," Barbour states in his report. "This has manifested itself in discussions on NORA and other collaborative activities that have a tone of 'our way or the highway,'" Barbour states.

Although management practices have been put in place over the past year to gain greater control over finance and budget issues, Barbour said, a number of deficiencies remain unresolved. Among them, he said, are an absence of long- and short-term business plans, an absence of cash flow budgeting, a lack of timeliness in the collection of anticipated revenues, and "heavy reliance on outsourcing of functions that should be internal (i.e. dues billing) that result in insufficient oversight and control."

"One area that is sorely lacking is outreach, media and public relations," Barbour said. "Among other things, I was informed that the organization does not have an up-to-date media list, or a communications plan that includes engaging the media on an ongoing basis."

"It should be noted, again in my opinion, that an adversarial culture has taken place at the staff level within AIDS Action," Barbour states in his report. "This is manifested by derogatory comments about board members, outside colleague organizations and specific individuals within those organizations that are allowed or encouraged by senior staff members, particularly at group meetings at the staff level."

Lou Chibbaro Jr. can be reached at lchibbaro@washblade.com.

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