December 2015 Grants

This new series of grants totals more than $5.4 million to support organizations addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in critical and innovative ways. This is the one of the Foundation’s largest grant cycles to date, renewing 38 grants and funding 32 new organizations, and brings EJAF’s total grant making for 2015 to over $9.8 million, a 40% increase over the Foundation’s investments in 2014.

“With this final grant cycle of 2015, our Foundation makes its largest commitment to ending HIV/AIDS in the 24 years of our work,” said EJAF Chairman David Furnish. “All of us at EJAF recognize that the latest scientific breakthroughs in preventing and treating HIV – including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and definitive proof that Treatment IS Prevention – have afforded us a unique opportunity to make real and lasting change in the course of the epidemic. We believe that today calls for big gestures and bold statements to transform the biomedical progress we’ve made into tangible differences in people’s lives.”

RENEWAL GRANTS

AIDS Alabama, Birmingham, AL
Renewal Grant: $100,000
Grant Name: Empower Advocates to Change HIV Policy in Alabama
Grant Goal:  To empower advocates and voters to improve HIV policies in Alabama
Organization Description:  AIDS Alabama devotes its energy and resources statewide to helping people with HIV/AIDS live healthy, independent lives and works to prevent the spread of HIV.
Grant Description: In Alabama, state legislators need to hear from their constituents about the need for improved healthcare access, harm reduction services and drug treatment programs, and sexual and reproductive health services. With this grant, AIDS Alabama works to (1) Support 10 HIV-positive people to become public leaders on HIV-related policy issues; (2) Provide 200 HIV-positive people with HIV-related policy information and advocacy skills; (3) Empower a core group of 10 youth to become leaders in sexual health policy and advocacy; (4) Expand the Alabama Alliance for Healthy Youth to include at least 2500 youth; (5) Conduct advocacy trainings for at least 25 Latinos living with HIV; (6) Increase awareness of HIV-related treatment, prevention, and advocacy information among at least 500 Latinos; (7) Conduct a needs assessment for people who inject drugs; (8) Meet with law enforcement and policy makers to discuss implementing syringe access programs; (9) Empower people living with HIV and the broader community on Medicaid expansion and the importance of voting; and (10) Establish a database of at least 1500 Alabamians interested in civic engagement.

Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Reston, VA
Renewal Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  Mobilizing Nurses to End HIV Criminalization and Improve Quality of HIV Care
Grant Goal:  To leverage the the influential voice of nurses to end HIV criminalization
Organization Description:   The Association of Nurses in AIDS Care’s mission is to educate and advocate on behalf of nurses working in HIV prevention, care, treatment, and  research.  The Association advances expertise and excellence in nurses engaged in any dimension of HIV disease and its comorbidities, works to ensure that nursing expertise is recognized as a key component of interprofessional care models, and promotes the role of nursing in health policies affecting the HIV community.
Grant Description: The Association’s aim with this project is to empower nurses in priority jurisdictions to serve as champions in the efforts to end HIV criminalization. In many states, people face potential criminal prosecution if they don’t disclose their HIV status to a sexual partner.  Nurses are a first point of contact for many people seeking HIV testing and care, and thus need to be more informed advocates for the rights of their patients regarding issues of risk-reduction and disclosure of HIV status to others. Building on two years of  work supported by EJAF, the Association has learned through evaluations and a survey that nurses prefer learning through conference presentations and online self-study modules.  The Association is developing at least three modules and designing a track focused on HIV criminalization for their 2016 Conference.  The Association also presents a session at the national American Nurses Association conference to reach a general nursing audience.  The Association continues to support education and advocacy activities at the state level in Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Michigan, and other states.  Assuming co-endorsement by the American Nurses Association of their position statement opposing criminalization, the Association intends to leverage this endorsement through broad dissemination and national messaging.  Ultimately, this effort is helping nurses to be informed and vocal in efforts throughout the United States to end HIV criminalization.

Big Bend Cares, Tallahassee, FL
Renewal Grant:  $40,000
Grant Name:  MSM HIV Testing, Linkage and Adherence via Peers
Grant Goal:  To test, link and ensure adherence to treatment for 120 Black gay men
Organization Description:  Big Bend Cares is the leading HIV service provider in Tallahassee, FL, providing comprehensive support and services to people infected with, and affected by, HIV/AIDS. Their tagline – “AIDS doesn’t care who you are; we do” – embodies their approach to eliminating stigma and enhancing HIV treatment and care.
Grant Description: Every year, Big Bend Cares uses EJAF support to help 120 Black gay and bisexual men throughout an eight county region surrounding Tallahassee, Florida, to access HIV counseling, testing and other services. This is accomplished through peer to peer outreach, in which Black gay men who come in for an HIV test are trained to talk to others in their social networks about HIV, HIV testing, and HIV treatment.  In addition to actively seeking out friends and sexual partners who may be unaware of their HIV status, each peer encourages friends to test regularly and if HIV-positive to monitor and maintain their health. Program goals are to ensure that:  (1) 100% of men enrolled in services see a physician twice per year; (2) 100% of men enrolled in services are compliant with all medications prescribed; and (3) 85% of men enrolled in services reach an undetectable viral load.

Birmingham AIDS Outreach, Birmingham, AL
Renewal Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  Magic City Acceptance Center
Grant Goal:  To provide education, testing, and social events for queer youth in an affirming space
Organization Description:   The mission of Birmingham AIDS Outreach is to enhance the quality of life for people living with HIV/AIDS, other at-risk or affected individuals, and the LGBTQ community through outreach, age-appropriate prevention education, and supportive services.
Grant Description: Opened in April 2014, the Magic City Acceptance Center provides an affirming space for LGBTQ youth in the Birmingham area.  The Center is the first of its kind in Birmingham and all programs are free of charge and accessible to anyone walking in to the Center.  People can access health information and counseling; rapid testing for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections; health and wellness workshops; art classes; movie nights; skills-building classes; seasonal events (Queer Prom, Holiday parties); regular meetings of the Birmingham Alliance of Gay, Straight, and Lesbian Youth; meetings of Steel City Spectrum, a trans support and resource group; and meetings of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). New programs include: Magic City Acceptance Homes, a home host program for homeless LGBTQ youth ages 18-24; and tele-counseling for youth that cannot come to the Center for counseling mainly due to transportation and living in rural areas of Alabama.

Casa Ruby, Washington, DC
Renewal Grant:  $80,000
Grant Name:  Trans Life Center
Grant Goal:  To serve the needs of transgender people in Metro DC
Organization Description:  Casa Ruby’s mission is to help transgender, gender queer, and gender non-conforming gay, lesbian, and bisexual people to build successful lives.  Their vision is to create a world where transgender, gender queer, and gender non-conforming people pursue their dreams and achieve success in their lives without fear of discrimination, harassment, or violence due to their sexual orientation and or gender identity/gender expression.
Grant Description: With this grant, Casa Ruby provides supportive case management to 50 transgender individuals to help them navigate the HIV care system and reaches out to 500 transgender individuals to provide HIV prevention, linkage to HIV care, and support to navigate and stay in care.  As part of this effort, Casa Ruby trains 20 HIV counselors/HIV health promoters and recruits five transgender individuals to become peer educators to conduct outreach and education, facilitate monthly support groups and quarterly workshops and community conversations about HIV prevention and HIV care.  Casa Ruby also distributes 20,000 condoms to transgender and gender non-conforming populations in Washington, DC.

Center for the Health of Incarcerated Persons/Emory University, Atlanta, GA
Renewal Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name: Planning for Sustained, Unbroken Connections to Care, Entry Services, and Suppression
Grant Goal:  To ensure medical care for incarcarated people with HIV.
Organization Description:  The Center for the Health of Incarcerated Persons, located within the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, is focused on addressing the health needs of 10 million persons who pass through U.S. jails and prisons each year through demonstration projects, research, and education. The Center is located between the two Atlanta jails served by the Center’s demonstration project: 8 miles from Fulton County Jail and 6 miles from DeKalb County Jail.
Grant Description: With support from EJAF, the Center offers HIV testing in the Fulton County Jail and the DeKalb County Jail and employs two full-time case managers to link 700 HIV-positive detainees to care after release. Through this effort, the Center identifies undiagnosed HIV-positive individuals and links new and previously diagnosed individuals to care. The Center has analyzed and documented its best practices in a formal research study that provides an evidence base for the claim that “discharge planning works” as a cost-effective program in the jail setting. The proven success of this effort has prompted the Fulton County Department of Health to agree to take on the costs of the case management services next year, with the Center continuing to document the cost effectiveness of the program.

Central Louisiana AIDS Support Services, Alexandria, LA
Renewal Grant:  $40,000
Grant Name:  Free Prevention Testing and Advocacy for Black Teens/Young Adults
Grant Goal:  To offer and expand outreach, social, and advocacy activities
Organization Description:   Based in Alexandria, Louisiana, the main city between Baton Rouge and Shrevepoint, the Central Louisiana AIDS Support Services is the primary HIV service provider working to improve the quality of life for people infected and affected by HIV; to reduce risk of HIV transmission; to educate as many people as possible about the spread and prevention of HIV; and to raise community support and awareness of HIV.
Grant Description:  This grant helps Central Louisiana AIDS Support Services continue and expand outreach activities including free on-site HIV and STD testing, counseling, and prevention materials in low income, high crime neighborhoods in the City of Alexandria, where there is a higher prevalence of people contracting HIV and STDs.  The program is expanding into eight more neighborhoods and targets teens and young adults.  This project continues to offer and increase social activities for LGBTQ teens and young adults and expands its social and educational activities among Black teens through a collaboration with the City of Alexandria’s teen after school and summer programs.

Desert AIDS Project, Palm Springs, CA
Renewal Grant:  $10,000
Grant Name:  Get Tested Coachella Valley
Grant Goal:  To provide services that reduce high HIV rates and improve community health
Organization Description:  Desert AIDS Project’s mission is to enhance and promote the health and well-being of their community.  The Project is the largest, most comprehensive AIDS service organization serving Riverside and San Bernardino Counties of Southern California. Over the past year, the Project provided primary medical care, behavioral healthcare, oral healthcare, and comprehensive social services to 2,305 low-income men, women, and adolescents of all races and ethnicities living with HIV.
Grant Description: This grant provides general operating support for Desert AIDS Project’s ongoing HIV testing and community health programming.

Desiree Alliance, Calabasas, CA
Renewal Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  Nothing about Us, Without Us: HIV/AIDS-related community and policy organizing for U.S. Sex Workers
Grant Goal:  To make sex worker leadership “part of the solution” to HIV/AIDS in the U.S.
Organization Description:  Desiree Alliance is dedicated to addressing the root causes of the impact of HIV/AIDS on sex workers including addressing the harmful anti-prostitution criminalizations. They approach their work based on human rights principles and engage in progressively advancing peer-led advocacy in HIV/AIDS policies through hands-on  sex worker-led mentorship and guidance.
Grant Description: This second and increased grant from EJAF funds the Desiree Alliance to organize a July 2016 national sex worker conference in New Orleans, supporting attendance by an HIV-positive keynote speaker and at least five HIV-positive sex workers from around the United States. The Desiree Alliance also uses EJAF funding to support its HIV advocacy emerging from the publication of their 2015 report about HIV and sex work.  This includes meetings with government representatives, political leaders, and other HIV related organizations; dissemination of HIV-related resource and referral information for sex workers; and production of short reports and fact sheets in partnership with people in the sex trade (especially sex workers who are transgender, lesbian or gay, migrants, low income, African American or Latino, youth, drug users and/or formerly incarcerated).

Duke University/Southern HIV/AIDS Strategy Initiative, Durham, NC
Renewal Grant: $50,000
Grant Name: Alliance for Southern HIV/AIDS Care
Grant Goal:  To improve healthcare coverage and access and increase HIV resources for the South
Organization Description:  The Alliance for Southern HIV/AIDS Care is a collaboration among four organizations, led by the Southern HIV/AIDS Strategy Initiative at Duke University. The Alliance works to improve access to comprehensive, affordable, high quality health coverage, care, and support services for people living with HIV in the Southern U.S.; to educate state and federal officials about HIV-related issues; and to ensure that the South receives federal HIV resources proportional to its share of the U.S. HIV epidemic.
Grant Description: The key objectives of this grant include: (1) Providing materials, education, and technical assistance to organizations in target states to increase access to meaningful health coverage and maximize resources available under the Ryan White CARE Act and the Affordable Care Act (ACA); (2) Analyzing the affordability and appropriateness of state ACA Marketplace plans vis-à-vis HIV care; and (3) Addressing discriminatory insurer practices and supporting AIDS Drug Assistance Program-private insurance coordination. These activities all address the underlying social determinants that drive HIV in the South and support the integration of HIV providers into new health services delivery models.

Equality Foundation of Georgia, Atlanta, GA
Renewal Grant: $75,000
Grant Name: Georgia HIV Advocacy Network
Grant Goal:  To build power among black gay men and youth living with HIV
Organization Description:  The Equality Foundation of Georgia’s mission is to advance fairness, safety and opportunity for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities and allies throughout Georgia by: (1) Educating the public, elected officials, and policymakers; (2) Building coalitions and mobilizing allies; (3) Increasing the participation of the LGBT and allied communities; and (4) Organizing and empowering the LGBT community and their allies in urban, suburban, and rural communities.
Grant Description: In addition to providing ongoing support for the Georgia HIV Advocacy Network, this grant helps expand two specific projects: (1) The Blueprint Series: This program brings together and provides support to black gay men; and (2) The Youth HIV Advisers Program: This program trains young people living with HIV on the the political process and empowers them to get involved and become the next generation of HIV advocates. With this funding, The Network seeks to expand its base of young black men and ally advocates in Georgia from 114 to 200 people.  The Network organizes ten community activities around specific issues including: criminalization, HIV stigma, access to healthcare, racial inequity, violence, and other structural drivers of HIV among black gay men. The Network is identifying and training 20 exceptional people living with HIV/AIDS under the age of 30 on the basics of HIV, how policies and laws are made, and how policy change is a “structural” intervention for HIV that differs from direct service.

The Fortune Society, Long Island City, NY
Renewal Grant:  $25,000
Grant Name: Health Services Program
Grant Goal:  To empower people living with HIV/AIDS to improve their health and quality of life
Organization Description:  The Fortune Society’s mission is to support successful re-entry from prison and promote alternatives to incarceration, thus strengthening the fabric of communities. The Society does this by believing in the power of individuals to change; building lives through service programs shaped by the needs and experience of their clients; and changing minds through education and advocacy to promote the creation of a fair, humane, and truly rehabilitative correctional system.
Grant Description:  The Fortune Society’s Health Services Program focuses on finding and helping people living with HIV/AIDS caught up in the criminal justice system who have fallen out of care. The Program provides solutions-focused case management based around the client’s needs alongside comprehensive HIV/AIDS-specific health education that allows clients to obtain medical care, and stay healthy.

FreeState Legal, Baltimore, MD
Renewal Grant:  $70,000
Grant Name:  LGBTQ Medical-Legal Partnership
Grant Goal:  To connect low-income LGBTQ people to legal and health services
Organization Description:  FreeState Legal is a statewide legal advocacy organization that seeks to improve the lives of Maryland’s 70,000+ low-income lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth, adults and families by providing direct legal services, policy advocacy, and educational training to ensure that the low-income LGBTQ community receives fair treatment under the law and throughout society.  A significant number of their clients are living with HIV, in many cases struggling to manage their HIV treatment.
Grant Description: Established in 2015 with the support of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, FreeState’s Medical-Legal Partnership is a collaboration with Chase Brexton Health Care, a leading health center in Baltimore serving 22,000 patients per year, 20% of them low-income LGBT patients. This project connects FreeState Legal’s clients to culturally competent medical services at Chase Brexton, and connects Chase Brexton’s LGBTQ patients with attorneys who can help with any number of legal issues such as housing and job discrimination and prevent unemployment, homelessness, and lack of access to accurate identity documents, all of which can negatively impact a person’s health. In total over 200 low-income LGBT people access quality medical care and free legal services through this program.

Friends for Life Corporation, Inc., Memphis, TN
Renewal Grant:  $75,000
Grant Name:  Youth Leadership Initiative
Grant Goal:  To help youth develop leadership skills for personal growth and to advocate for social change
Organization Description:  Established in Memphis, Tennessee in 1985, Friends For Life Corporation is the oldest and most comprehensive AIDS service organization in the Mid-South, serving more than 2,000 HIV-positive people, 90% of whom are African American..  Through a comprehensive approach that includes education, housing, food, transportation, and healthy life skills training, Friends for Life strives to enlighten the Mid-South community in a manner that heightens awareness, facilitates acceptance and promotes prevention.
Grant Description:  With this second year of EJAF grant support for the Youth Leadership Initiative, Friends For Life continues a successful program to identify young leaders and train a new generation in the fight against HIV. A particular focus for year two is to support young people to increase awareness of and access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and non-occupational post-exposure prophylaxis (nPEP).

Georgia AIDS Coalition, Snellville, GA
Renewal Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  Georgia AIDS Advocacy in Action
Grant Goal:  To combine advocacy with HIV prevention and testing
Organization Description:   Georgia AIDS Coalition is an activist organization pushing for an effective government response to HIV/AIDS in Georgia.
Grant Description:  Georgia AIDS Advocacy in Action brings people living with and affected by HIV in Georgia together, educates them on political issues, and trains them to become part of a larger movment for progressive change.  With this EJAF grant, Georgia AIDS Coalition transports 75 activists from Savannah into Atlanta for advocacy with the Georgia state legislature, and continues to work with Savannah healthcare providers to do HIV organizing at the two historically Black universities in that city – Savannah State University and Georgia State University in Savannah.

Georgia State University Foundation, Atlanta, GA
Renewal Grant: $50,000
Grant Name: The Linkage to Care Peer Guide Training Program
Grant Goal:  To train peers to help HIV+ persons get linked to medical care
Organization Description:  The mission of the Linkage to Care Peer Guide Training Program is to provide people living with HIV/AIDS with the skill sets to help link to care the approximately 40% of HIV+ persons who are not currently in medical care, in collaboration with local Atlanta AIDS service organizations and community-based organizations.
Grant Description: With this EJAF grant, Georgia State University trains a new cohort of 12 HIV-positive Black transgender women and Black young gay men as Peer Guides. These individuals learn to help others in similar circumstances develop the skills and access the medical services needed for staying healthy and continually on HIV treatment.  The program then places these trained Peers in internships leading to both paid and volunteer positions with local AIDS service organizations. This is an important effort in supporting a new generation of leaders in the HIV effort in Atlanta.

Guiding Right, Inc., Oklahoma City, OK
Renewal Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  “Not Knowing is Contagious” Mobile Testing Tour
Grant Goal:  To provide mobile HIV testing and linkage to care for people unreachable by traditional facilities
Organization Description:  Guiding Right is an organization based in the African American community of Oklahoma City working to decrease social, economic, and health disparities for minority and other vulnerable populations within Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
Grant Description: With this grant, Guiding Right continues the “Not Knowing is Contagious” Mobile Testing Tour, targeting major events for Black Americans, such as the annual Juneteenth celebration, and key venues and low income apartment complexes in the twelve Oklahoma City zip codes that represent the largest number of HIV cases from 2003-2014. In total, Guiding Right anticipates reaching over 500 African-Americans with rapid HIV testing, identifying at least 15 people who are HIV-positive and unaware of their status, and distributing condoms and health information throughout the area.

Health and Education Alternatives for Teens (HEAT) Program/Research Foundation of SUNY, Brooklyn, NY
Renewal Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  House Lives Matter
Grant Goal:  To mobilize House Ball Community youth to advocate for their community
Organization Description:  Established in 1992, the Health and Education Alternatives for Teens (HEAT) Program is the only program of its kind in Brooklyn to offer comprehensive medical and mental health care, supportive services, and access to clinical research for HIV+ and at-risk youth, aged 13 to 24.  HEAT’s mission is to serve the special needs of youth who are HIV+ or at high-risk and to remove the barriers that young people often face while accessing health care.
Grant Description: House Lives Matter is a dynamic project that promotes wellness, quality of life, rights, and resiliency among young people in the House Ball Community.  It brings together youth from different Houses and helps them build a collect voice to advocate for their rights and the wellbeing of their community. House Lives Matter builds upon HEAT’s successful track record of reaching LGBTQ youth of color in Brooklyn.  HEAT trains and works with House Ball Community youth leaders to carry out a year-long initiative that: (1) Cultivates leadership and responsibility; (2) Provides entry-level work experience for a community that faces employment discrimination; (3) Helps people identify and take action on community issues; (4) Shares a House Ball Ccommunity youth advocacy agenda with health/social service providers and city and state agencies and policy makers; (5) Promotes HIV testing and counseling, access to care, and PrEP; and (6) Reduces HIV stigma.

Health Through Walls, North Miami, FL
Renewal Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  Prisoners on Hispaniola: Test and Treat for HIV
Grant Goal:  To provide HIV testing to prisoners and visitors and connect HIV+ people to treatment
Organization Description:  Health through Walls is a non-profit organization based in Florida whose mission is to help people in low income countries improve the health care services of their prisons. A primary focus of this effort is the identification, prevention, and management of infectious diseases, especially HIV and tuberculosis.
Grant Description: With support from this EJAF grant, Health Through Walls staff offer HIV testing to over 2,000 inmates each year at 10 prisons in Haiti and at La Victoria Penitentiary in the Dominican Republic, and strengthen treatment programs for the 60-100 people identified with HIV infection.  The project also offers testing to prison visitors, including spouses, girlfriends, members of the LGBTQ community and sex workers, and links those individuals to care and treatment as needed.  The result is that hundreds of people in detention will learn their HIV status and will be linked to HIV care in settings that otherwise do not have these services.

Hetrick-Martin Institute, New York, NY
Renewal Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  Center for LGBTQ Youth Advocacy and Capacity Building – Youth Leadership Program
Grant Goal:  To ensure the needs of LGBTQ youth are being voiced and addressed
Organization Description:  Hetrick-Martin Institute believes all young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential. The Institute offers this to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth between 13 and 24 and their families. Through a comprehensive array of programs, the Institute fosters healthy youth development, promotes excellence in service delivery, and creates innovative programs that others may use as models.
Grant Description: With this grant, the Institute builds on previous EJAF support to take their Center for LGBTQ Youth Advocacy and Capacity Building to the next level, ensuring that the Institute continues to be a leader in LGBTQ youth and HIV/AIDS advocacy, while addressing barriers that prevent effective programs from being adopted, by utilizing key initiatives including: (1) critical training for decision-makers, government agencies, educators, community leaders, service providers, and community-based organizations serving LGBTQ youth; (2) implementation of the Institute’s PRISM Scan evaluation tool to create inclusive systems and safe spaces for LGBTQ youth; (3) using social media to create a digital footprint to help the Institute reach stakeholders who do not have geographic access to their programs; and (4) training young people, particularly young MSM of color, to serve as the “youth” voice of the Institute, be agents of change in their communities, and assist with advocacy around health, economic, juvenile justice, racial, and education issues.

Housing Works, Washington, DC
Renewal Grant: $110,000
Grant Name: Activism and Organizing for People Who Inject Drugs in the Caribbean
Grant Goal:  To conduct a drug user decriminalization campaign in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic
Organization Description:  Housing Works is a healing community of people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. Their mission is to end the dual crises of homelessness and AIDS through relentless advocacy, the provision of lifesaving services, and entrepreneurial businesses that sustain their efforts.
Grant Description: Through drug user decriminalization campaigns in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, Housing Works advocates to eliminate stigma for people who inject drugs, create access and safety, and through this, eradicate the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Caribbean through the following efforts:  (1) Systematically confronting drug user criminalization and stigma; (2) Improving health outcomes for people who inject drugs; (3) Confronting and ending the Puerto Rican and Dominican AIDS epidemics, which are fuelled by drug use; and (4) Encouraging other Caribbean nations to implement similar campaigns.

Human Rights Campaign Foundation, Washington, DC
Renewal Grant: $300,000
Grant Name: Capacity-Building and Community Mobilization with LGBTQ and HIV-Affected Communities
Grant Goal: To build the capacity of, and mobilize, HIV-affected communities
Organization Description:  The Human Rights Campaign Foundation is organized for the charitable and educational purposes of promoting public education and welfare for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. HRC Foundation envisions a world where lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people are ensured equality and embraced as full members of society at home, at work, and in every community.
Grant Description: With the support of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation has dramatically expanded their HIV-related programming. They have increased their public advocacy defending the rights of people living with and affected by HIV, and are publicly reaffirming their commitment to ending the epidemic and the stigma surrounding HIV. With this next grant, HRCF continues its public education work and political advoacy on issues related to Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), needle and syringe exchange programs, medicine price gouging, and discrimination. Additionally, HRCF is launching an innovative fellowship for young nonprofit leaders working in under-resourced areas and organizations that are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS.

Jacksonville Area Sexual Minority Youth Network (JASMYN), Inc., Jacksonville, FL
Renewal Grant:  $55,000
Grant Name:  JASMYN PrEP Access Project
Grant Goal:  To make PrEP available to high risk young MSM
Organization Description:   Jacksonville Area Sexual Minority Youth Network (JASMYN) supports and empowers LGBTQ young people by creating safe space, providing health and wholeness services, and offering youth development opportunities, while bringing people and resources together to promote equality and human rights.
Grant Description: The JASMYN PrEP Access Project works to develop a community plan makes PrEP available to very high risk young MSM.  JASMYN works with the local health department to lead a work group of medical providers, insurance navigators, non-profit organizations, advocates, and consumers to implement a plan that addresses the barriers to access for PrEP.  JASMYN also provides case management services to young MSM and trans sex workers and others engaging in high risk sexual activity to help them create a stable environment for successful adherence. JASMYN also utilizes the weekly JASMYN STD clinic to educate and inform high risk young people about PrEP and to provide follow-up services.

L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, Los Angeles, CA
Renewal Grant: $75,000
Grant Name: Expanding Access to HIV/STI Prevention, Testing and Treatment for at-risk LGBT Individuals
Grant Goal:  To provide educational outreach, STI/HIV testing and care to LGBT people
Organization Description:  The Los Angeles LGBT Center (The Center) is building a world where LGBT people thrive as healthy, equal and complete members of society.  The Center is at the forefront of stemming the spread of AIDS in Los Angeles, and they believe that access to innovative health care is a right, not a privilege, for LGBT people. As such, the Center’s physical/mental health services are provided on a sliding fee scale making them low-cost or free to low-income individuals. They expect to serve approximately 21,000 clients next year.
Grant Description: The Center’s programs provide HIV prevention care by conducting outreach, events, education, rapid HIV antibody testing, PCR/DNA HIV testing, comprehensive STI testing/treatment, post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), partner notification services, direct linkage to mental health services, HIV medical care, and other support services to help maintain viral suppression.  This grant  helps The Center meet three key objectives for this project:  (1) Expanding PrEP services availability in a way that ensures PrEP is available to all individuals, regardless of their ability to pay; (2) Conducting culturally sensitive, targeted outreach efforts, including disseminating safer sex kits and condoms, educating individuals at high risk for HIV/STIs about safer sex practices, combating the negative stigma of HIV, and promoting a sex positive culture; and (3) Ensuring that any client who becomes HIV positive, regardless of ability to pay, is supported and quickly linked to HIV care services that are appropriate for their individual needs, and that they receive the care, medication and support services needed to become and remain virally suppressed.

Mississippi Center for Justice, Jackson, MS
Renewal Grant:  $75,000
Grant Name:  Mississippi Medical-Legal Partnership for People Living with HIV/AIDS
Grant Goal:  To end HIV discrimination through legal services and education
Organization Description:  The Mississippi Center for Justice is a nonprofit, public interest law firm committed to advancing racial and economic justice. Supported and staffed by attorneys and other professionals, the Center develops and pursues strategies to combat discrimination and poverty statewide.
Grant Description:  Ultimately, the Mississippi Center for Justice seeks to eradicate HIV/AIDS discrimination in Mississippi. Their two-fold approach to achieving this result involves both preventive education and legal redress of discrimination.  To provide legal assistance, the Center has a staff attorney dedicated to this project onsite at least one regularly scheduled day per week at the Center’s Jackson Medical Mall office, and more as needed. On those days, their attorney is available for walk-in consultations, whether the client was referred by a clinic or self-referred. At times, the project attorney also goes to a health clinic to meet with a patient/client. Outside of office hours, the attorney is available by phone or appointment.   The project attorney identifies systemic issues that could be addressed through impact litigation or policy reform.

My Brother’s Keeper, Ridgeland, MS
Renewal Grant: $100,000
Grant Name: Becoming a Healthier U Program 2.0
Grant Goal:  To provide systemic coordination of HIV services among Black MSM
Organization Description:  My Brother’s Keeper’s mission is to reduce health disparities throughout the United States by enhancing the health and well being of minority and marginalized populations through leadership in public and community health practices, collaboration and partnerships.
Grant Description:  EJAF’s grant funds an enhancement to My Brother’s Keeper’s Becoming a Healthier U Program by adding Case Management and Patient Navigation for HIV positive and high-risk Black American men who sex with men, aged 16-60, to their existing program. The program continues to provide patients with preventive health screenings. However, these services are now supported by a case manager and a patient navigator who manage the HIV care and prevention needs of Black MSM.  The case manager is responsible for  linking the target population to HIV care and treatment and support services.  The patient navigator works with the patient at the onset of the visit to identify barriers to healthcare and to connect the patient to resources.  In addition, the patient navigator collaborates with other HIV healthcare facilities to coordinate care and to advocate for the patient healthcare services.  The program is incorporated into The Mississippi Integrated Center for Care and Supportive Services, which includes HIV disease management and prevention.

Nashville CARES, Nashville, TN
Renewal Grant:  $55,000
Grant Name:  Brothers United Network of Tennessee
Grant Goal:  To strengthen the Brothers United Network by recruiting and training Black MSM as key leaders
Organization Description:  Nashville CARES’ mission is to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Middle Tennessee through education, advocacy and support for those at risk for or living with HIV.
Grant Description: With this grant, Nashville CARES works to strengthen the Brothers United Network by building upon past success in recruitment and training of Black gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men as key leaders in Memphis, Knoxville, and Chattanooga.  This effort complements Nashville CARES’ work with Black MSM in Nashville. Mobilization uses the Mpowerment model of community building, which includes formal and informal outreach, social media campaigns, group recruitment and education, and peer leadership skills-building to mobilize gay and bisexual men around HIV prevention.  Recruited and trained Black MSM become peer educators, who then share or “diffuse” information throughout their local communities in subsequent outreach and education activities.  Through their ongoing work as peer educators, these Black MSM develop the skills and comfort levels to become community leaders in this process of community building and mobilization.  Black MSM from the four chapters meet at a year-end retreat to plan network activities for the next year.

NCCI/The Center for HIV Law and Policy, New York, NY
Renewal Grant:  $200,000
Grant Name:  Positive Justice and Sexual Health Project
Grant Goal:  A creative strategy to end stigma and criminalization of outlawed identities
Organization Description:  The Center for HIV Law and Policy is a national legal and policy resource and strategy center for people with HIV and their advocates. Founded in 2005, the Center works to reduce the impact of HIV on vulnerable and marginalized communities and to secure the human rights of people affected by HIV.
Grant Description: The Positive Justice and Sexual Health Project increases momentum and results for HIV criminal law reform and LGBT-inclusive sexual health literacy in detention facilities, as essential to ending discrimination and violence against all LGBT people, particularly youth and people of color by purusing the following activities:  (1) Convening Positive Justice Project sister coalitions to promote coordination and more effective advocacy for state law modernization; (2) Media convening and message development to improve advocacy with multiple stakeholders and policy makers; (3) Promoting Positive Justice Project principles, offering coordination/support in states with local capacity or where new bills are likely; (4) Continuing back-up as needed to state advocacy networks that have become self-sustaining; (5) Producing physician-led presentations on HIV transmission routes, risks, and realities for state policy makers, law enforcement personnel, and defense attorneys; (6) Prosecutors roundtable and  state AIDS directors convening to support law reform; (7) Collaborating with 1-2 national partners to advocate for adoption of LGBT-inclusive sexual health literacy policies in federally-funded youth detention and correctional facilities; and (8) Planning youth advocate meetings with federal child welfare/detention officials to secure sexual health literacy services for LGBT youth.

North Carolina AIDS Action Network, Raleigh, NC
Renewal Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  Gaining Rights the Organizing Way (GROW) Project
Grant Goal:  To expand, educate, and engage North Carolina’s HIV advocacy community
Organization Description:  The North Carolina AIDS Action Network improves the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS and affected communities through outreach and public education, policy advocacy, and community-building to increase visibility and mutual support of people living with HIV/AIDS throughout the state. North Carolina AIDS Action Network is the leading advocacy network in the state and works closely with Duke University School of Law, Equality North Carolina, the LGBT Center of Raleigh, North Carolina Civil Liberties Union, and the North Carolina NAACP.
Grant Description: Intense and ongoing advocacy is important to ensure that people living with HIV in North Carolina have access to health care and supportive services. Through this EJAF grant, the North Carolina AIDS Action Network disseminates policy information to the 10,000 members of their advocacy network, arranges 30 constituent visits to state legislators, trains youth leaders and HIV-positive advocates in communications and media work, and reaches people with HIV information at pride festivals, historically Black colleges and universities, and Black church congregations throughout the state. The result is a continuous advocacy effort in North Carolina to promote healthcare access, change HIV criminalization laws, and achieve increased equality and civil rights for all.

Partners In Health, Boston, MA
Renewal Grant: $500,000
Grant Name: Delivering Integrated HIV Care and Services at St. Marc, Haiti
Grant Goal: To enhance HIV care and services at St. Marc
Organization Description:  The mission of Partners In Health (PIH) is to provide a preferential health care option to the poor.  Through long-term relationships with sister organizations based in settings of poverty, PIH strives to achieve two overarching goals: to bring the benefits of modern medical science to those most in need of them and to serve as an antidote to despair.
Grant Description: As a port city, St. Marc poses unique challenges due to size, complexity, poverty level and because it attracts groups at higher risk for HIV infection and transmission. To continue improving access to care, Partners In Health’s goals for this year are to:  (1) At the clinic level, provide diagnosis, care and treatment to HIV patients and offer prevention services such as voluntary counseling and testing and prevention of mother-to-child transmission to the public; (2) At the community level, reduce stigma and increase access to HIV testing and care through education sessions; (3) With an enhanced community health worker accompaniment system, address obstacles to continuous care, treatment and adherence (such as transportation and high economic costs), and sustain patient retention; and (4) At the national level,  strengthen public health systems through partnership with the Ministry of Health. For example, support district health authorities by assisting in efforts to document universal coverage of patients with antiretroviral therapy in St. Marc.

Philadelphia Center, Shreveport, LA
Renewal Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  Advancing HIV/AIDS Advocacy in Northwest Louisiana
Grant Goal:  To support coalition building to improve conditions faced by people living with HIV/AIDS in Louisiana
Organization Description:  The mission of The Philadelphia Center is to empower people affected by HIV/AIDS and STDs through education and service and  to create a community free from HIV/AIDS and STDs that promotes healthy living.
Grant Description: The Philadelphia Center’s Advocacy Program works to empower the local community of people living with HIV/AIDS to become strong voices for change regarding the criminalization laws targeting them. This is accomplished through focus groups, targeting the outreach to people most at risk. The Center collaborates with groups throughout the state who have the same goals to nurture grassroots activism within these communities. The Center’s Advocacy Coordinator travels throughout the community to speak to groups who can further the cause of de-stigmatization of people living with HIV/AIDS within the community, especially in rural and poor urban areas where HIV infection rates are highest. The Center also reaches out to civic leaders, religious organizations, and policy makers at the local and state level.

Positive Women’s Network — USA, Oakland, CA
Renewal Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  Ensuring High-Quality Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare Services for People Living with HIV in the Southern U.S.
Grant Goal:  To uphold the sexual and reproductive rights of people living with HIV through education, advocacy, and policy change
Organization Description:  The mission of Positive Women’s Network – USA is to prepare and involve women living with HIV, including transgender women, in all levels of policy and decision making to improve the quality of their lives.
Grant Description: With EJAF support, Positive Women’s Network – USA launched an invigorated response to build power, leadership skills, and organized advocacy among women living with HIV in the U.S. South in order to uphold human rights, dignity, and access to high quality care and services. Over the next year, the Network seeks to deepen the understanding of treatment as prevention in the context of sexual and reproductive health and rights among women living with HIV in the U.S. South, healthcare providers who serve them, and policy makers and advocates.  Advocacy in the South is urgently needed to fight for better healthcare, including Medicaid expansion, noncoercive treatment as prevention, reform to HIV criminalization laws, and access to women’s health services.  To achieve this, the Network is developing a cohort of women living with HIV in Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina as Treatment-Is-Prevention champions over the next year, who then serve as trainers and advocates. The majority of participants in all activities are Black women living with HIV.

Racial Justice Action Center, Atlanta, GA
Renewal Grant: $75,000
Grant Name: Solutions Not Punishment Coalition and Campaign
Grant Goal:  To improve lives by decreasing police harassment and increasing services
Organization Description:  The Racial Justice Action Center collectively envisions a vibrant, inclusive Atlanta that ensures the safety and health of, and holistically meets the needs of, all of the city’s stakeholders and residents by organizing to end the criminalization of transgender and LGBTQ people of color and of people living with HIV/AIDS, and by transforming the policies and culture of the police, our justice system, elected officials, and the larger community.
Grant Description: The Racial Justice Action Center supports and organizes people most affected by criminalization, biased policing, and HIV/AIDS– including trans women of color and those engaged in survival sex work, as well as encouraging the larger community to provide needed support.  The Center evaluates and plans a second round of its Trans* Leadership Connection (TLC) Internship Program to build a cadre of powerful, knowledgeable leaders from the communities most impacted who can educate and reach out to an even broader group of people, conduct presentations, and guide the campaign.  To maintain and build the Center’s broad coalition, they hold monthly meetings to provide updates, gather input, impart educational information (in the form of teach-ins), and collectively strategize on the campaign.  The Center also conducts research, public engagement, and advocacy activities to demand that elected and appointed officials take concrete action to improve the lives of LGBTQ people.

Sex Workers Project, New York, NY
Renewal Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  Supporting and Advocating for MSM and Trans Sex Workers
Grant Goal:  To meet the needs of MSM and trans sex workers via direct services and policy
Organization Description:  The Sex Workers Project advances the rights and welfare of sex workers, regardless of whether they work by choice, circumstance, or coercion.  The Project provides excellent client-centered legal and social services grounded in human rights, harm reduction, and in the real life experiences of their clients. The Project advances systemic change through policy and media advocacy, community education, and human rights documentation and  strives for a world that is safe for sex workers and where human trafficking does not exist.
Grant Description: With this grant, the Sex Workers Project helps meet the needs of MSM and trans sex workers at risk for or living with HIV SWP by (1) Hiring a new social worker to expand the Project’s capacity so meet the demand for its social services; (2) Expanding their direct services, legal representation, HIV testing and treatment referrals, therapeutic counseling, and case management; (3) Building coalitions to change punitive policies endangering at-risk populations; (4) Collaborating on post-conviction relief and health insurance registration to enlarge their service distribution; (5) Growing their national network to fortify the Project’s advocacy for the rights and safety of sex workers; (6) Expanding their technical and training assistance program to strengthen the field with the Project’s learnings from MSM and trans sex workers; (7) Situating their research on HIV criminalization within the larger context of criminalization, testing, services, and incarceration; and (8) Building their national impact through strategic partnerships supporting the work of Project allies.

Southern AIDS Coalition, Inc., Birmingham, AL
Renewal Grant: $50,000
Grant Name:  Stronger Together: Connecting for Change Across the South
Grant Goal:  To connect key stakeholders for systemic change in the South
Organization Description:   The Southern AIDS Coalition’s mission is to end the HIV and STI epidemics in the South by promoting accessible and high quality systems of prevention, treatment, care, housing, and essential support services.
Grant Description: In a climate of limited funding, restricted implementation of health care reform, and a growing epidemic in the South, it is vital that all stakeholders coordinate advocacy efforts, share best practices, and leverage scarce resources in the most efficient way possible. This project connects people living with HIV to each other by building and maintaining an infrastructure to promote interconnectedness, marketing the virtual network on the ground in at least six states, registering people living with HIV and their allies to vote, and offering ongoing training and support to truly empower people living with the disease.  The project also connects HIV service providers to each other by building and maintaining an infrastructure to promote collaboration among providers in at least three states, hosting at least one in-person meeting in each state, and offering ongoing administrative support.  Lastly, the project connects people living with HIV, service providers, and other allies with important policymakers to engage in meaningful advocacy.

STAND, Inc., Decatur, GA
Renewal Grant: $100,000
Grant Name: The Person Centered Project
Grant Goal:  Readdressing HIV messages to enhance the quality of life of persons served
Organization Description:  STAND aspires to be a globally recognized in its dedication to strengthening communities by providing holistic and evolving solutions to people suffering from complex, social challenges and diseases through education and proven interventions.  STAND continues to touch, change and empower others to engage in healthy, productive lifestyles, one life and one community at a time.
Grant Description:  STAND targets a minimum of 100 individuals 16 years of age and older that are infected or affected by HIV,  using the following mechanisms to leverage lived experiences to aid them in improving current messages about HIV that appear flawed:  (1) Gathering stories via focus groups, videography, and relationships and experience with their community and educational institute partners as well as print, electronic, and social media to reach individuals identified to participate in the project; and (2) Establishing participants’ risks for transmission of HIV, their status, social, environmental, mental health needs and their level of motivation for behavior modification, thus improving their quality of life.  With these mechanism techniques in place, STAND follows individuals that are HIV+, newly diagnosed, and/or lost to care to help them acquire and maintain an undetectable status while educating the broader community about behavioral health prevention.

Third Wave Fund, Brooklyn, NY
Renewal Grant: $75,000
Grant Name:  Third Wave Fund
Grant Goal:  To fund communities to address the economic and political causes of HIV
Organization Description:  Third Wave Fund supports and strengthens youth-led gender justice activism—focusing on efforts that advance the political power, well-being, and self-determination of communities of color and low-income communities. The Fund partners with philanthropic institutions and individual donors to invest in under-resourced regions and social justice youth movements in the United States.
Grant Description: This grant supports the Third Wave Fund’s efforts to pilot and grow their grant-making programs and provide capacity building trainings for community activists who are most affected by HIV/AIDS.  The Fund’s grant-making programs encourage communities most affected by HIV/AIDS to address the political, economic, and social context of HIV. EJAF resources help to grow the Fund’s Mobilize Power Rapid Response Fund to provide quick, responsive, and flexible grants for work led by women of color, queer, and trans youth that addresses urgent opportunities and threats. This funding stream remains open year-round and turns around grants within two weeks. This grant also helps to launch a pilot cohort of Seed Power Fund grantees — a funding program that provides multi-year general operating and capacity building support for emerging gender justice organizations in under-funded regions with a particular focus on funding in the U.S. South.

Wanda Alston Foundation, Washington, DC
Renewal Grant:  $35,000
Grant Name:  Wanda Alston House
Grant Goal:  To provide housing for homeless youth to help reduce health disparities
Organization Description:  Realizing the great potential in LGBTQ youth in Washington, DC, the Wanda Alston Foundation is dedicated to ensuring LGBTQ youth have access to services that improve their overall quality of life. The Wanda Alston Foundation advocates for increased resources for youth while providing programs including: housing, life skills training, linkages to other social services, and capacity building assistance for other community allies.
Grant Description: Building on previous EJAF support, the Wanda Alston Foundation: (1) provides transitional living for up to 18 months for as many as eight LGBTQ homeless youth; (2) conducts individual and group level evidence-based risk-reduction interventions to reduce the incidence of STI and HIV infections among Black LGBTQ youth who reside at the house; (3) provides free STI and HIV screenings to its residents; (4) refers HIV-positive teens to clinics and organizations that specialize in serving marginalized communities such as Black LGBTQ youth.; and (5) provides case management, employment readiness, and educational guidance supported by a  Licensed Clinical Social Worker to residents.

NEW GRANTS

ACT UP/NY, New York, NY
New Grant:  $10,000
Grant Name:  ACT UP to End the AIDS Epidemic in New York State
Grant Goal:  To implement the Ending the Epidemic Blueprint through community education and advocacy
Organization Description:   ACT UP is a diverse, nonpartisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis. ACT UP meets with government and health officials; researches and distributes the latest medical information; protests and demonstrates; ACT UP is not silent. They challenge anyone who, by their actions or inaction, hinders the fight against AIDS. Working both inside the halls of power and out in the street, ACT UP has shaped HIV policy at a local, state, and national level since 1987.
Grant Description: With this grant, ACT UP expands its roles as shaper of policy and street catalyst for Ending the Epidemic. ACT UP’s research arm gathers facts for Ending the Epidemic-related campaigns, filing necessary Freedom of Information requests, drafting fact sheets and position papers. ACT UP sponsors Town Hall meetings on issues the community needs to know, then works to convert that grassroots knowledge into action. Members meet with local officials and policy makers to promote Ending the Epidemic goals. Local actions target key officials and agencies to fund and implement the Blueprint’s various parts. ACT UP sends a few activists to Albany regularly for targeted persuasion of key lawmakers involved in ongoing legislation. At key points ACT UP can also send a busload of activists to Albany to visit state legislators and stage actions in support of Ending the Epidemic. This grant supports copying costs, filing fees, signage, rental of buses, space, equipment, and other operational costs.

AframSouth, Inc., Montgomery, AL
New Grant:  $25,000
Grant Name:  Using Community Participation to Strengthen Sexual Health Curriculum in School-Age Children to Prevent HIV
Grant Goal:  To use community participation to decrease HIV in youth in a rural Alabama county
Organization Description:  The AIDS Coalition of Alabama Project is a recently formed coalition of community-based organizations, AIDS service organizations, academicians, and community members focused on organizing Black organizations around increased information, education, and resources about HIV/AIDS prevention in Black communities in Alabama.
Grant Description: This project focuses on Black school-age children in Lowndes County, Alabama, which has the highest incidence rate of HIV in the state.  Project components include: (1)  conducting a comprehensive assessment of current sex education programming, including types, amount and effectiveness of education; (2) assembling a coalition group of Black American stakeholders to implement a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach for evaluating current programs, as well as gaps in programming; and (3) facilitating the coalition’s development of an action plan for implementation of a comprehensive, evidence- and community-based approach to address sex education in order to prevent HIV.

Alamo Area Resource Center, San Antonio, TX
New Grant:  $75,000
Grant Name:  The San Antonio LGBT Health Equality Initiative
Grant Goal:  To increase LGBT access to healthcare and educational support
Organization Description:  The mission of the Alamo Area Resource Center is to maximize the quality of life for individuals who are homeless, disabled, or facing life challenging illnesses, including HIV/AIDS, by providing comprehensive, compassionate, and effective social support services in South Texas.
Grant Description:  The Alamo Area Resource Center provides space and contracts with LGBT physicians and clinicians to provide intakes, conduct medical assessments, and offer treatment services for the LGBT community in San Antonio and South Texas, historically among the most medically under-served regions. Center clinicians are culturally sensitive and representative of the communities served. In addition to primary medical care, Center staff provide information, referral, and patient navigation for LGBT patients and consumers. The Center also utilizes its LGBT clinic for health outreach and health education for LGBT organizations and communities and provide advocacy for LGBT Health Equity with local and state health policymakers, researchers and educators. The Center also develops effective partnerships within the LGBT community to continue to build, expand, and strengthen its LGBT healthcare model. All services provided are offered with respect and compassion for the community.

The Attic Youth Center, Phildelphia, PA
New Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  LGBTQ Youth of Color Leadership , Advocacy, and Wellness Project
Grant Goal:  To empower and engage LGBTQ youth of color through multifaceted programming
Organization Description:   The Attic Youth Center creates opportunities for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ) youth to develop into healthy, independent, civic-minded adults within a safe and supportive community, and promotes the acceptance of LGBTQ youth in society.
Grant Description:  The Attic uses a youth development model to engage LGBTQ youth of color who are HIV positive or at high risk in youth leadership and career readiness programming that focuses on health and wellness, prevention, empowerment, social justice and systems change. The Attic believes that only through a holistic approach that addresses the individual, the system, and the individual within the system will we be able to effectively address the persistent disparities in outcomes for LGBTQ youth of color. The program’s intention is to break this cycle via direct services for LGBTQ youth that cultivate their inner strength and skills, combined with social justice education and outreach and training efforts so that youth can have a role in changing the systems that have negatively impacted their lives. The Attic also provides supportive services for LGBTQ youth of color, including individual and family therapy, case management, support groups, and testing.

Bronx Museum, Bronx, NY
New Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  Art/AIDS/The Bronx: Community Programs during Art AIDS America at The Bronx Museum of the Arts
Grant Goal:  To build HIV/AIDS awareness for key Bronx populations through creative programs
Organization Description: The Bronx Museum of the Arts is a contemporary art museum that connects diverse audiences to the urban experience through its permanent collection, special exhibitions, and education programs.  Founded in 1971 by community leaders, the Bronx Museum has launched a number of ambitious initiatives that have demonstrated its commitment to supporting living artists, fostering enriching cross-cultural dialogues, and making the fine arts accessible to diverse audiences. The Bronx Museum provides an extensive array of education programs for students of all ages, with fee-waivers provided to most schools for their Museum visits.  In addition, the Bronx Museum’s robust roster of public programs are not only free, but are also produced with active input from the Museum’s Community Advisory Committee, a group of 29 Bronxites who represent various professions, communities, and generations in the Bronx.
Grant Description: This exhibition came about in part from the appeals of community members to bring attention to the legacy of HIV in the Bronx and the current AIDS crisis faced by this borough. In conjunction with the summer 2016 exhibition Art AIDS America, the Bronx Museum presents free public and education programs focused on AIDS in the Bronx today.   The offerings include a film screening in conjunction with the New York African Film Festival; a Bronx Stories program, produced in collaboration with Visual AIDS, where artists relate personal stories to the artworks in the exhibition; and Readings & Conversations, produced in collaboration with the Bronx Writers Center, featuring AIDS-related excerpts from the Bronx Memoir Project. The teen education component includes a seven-week Teen Saturday comic culture program for Bronx LGBT teens; an intensive three-week Teen Summer program exploring AIDS in the Bronx through interviews and production of a “zine” and a culminating video.   The education program culminates with an exhibition in the Museum featuring the teens’ comic drawings along with a large-screen display of the final Teen Summer video. As this project unfolds, EJAF will work with the museum and other New York grantees to ensure that all the people supported through Foundation grants have the opportunity to participate in this program.

Charleston Area Medical Center (CAMC) Health Education and Research Institute, Inc., Charleston, WV
New Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  CAMC Ryan White Program Expanded Linkage to Care in Southern West Virginia’s Gay Male Community
Grant Goal:  To increase retention and comprehensive care in remote, rural areas of Southern West Virginia
Organization Description:  The CAMC Ryan White Program’s mission is to increase access to services for individuals at risk for, or infected with, HIV disease and to provide quality, comprehensive patient care in a safe environment for all lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender West Virginians.
Grant Description:  Stigma, limited access to primary and dental care, poverty, aging, substance abuse, and lack of transportation all contribute to often insurmountable barriers to care. West Virginia’s rural areas do not have HIV specialists or public transportation. The majority of the CAMC Health Education and Research Institute’s patients travel over 50 miles one way to appointments. Gas prices cause many to miss appointments or fall out of care. Many aging gay men are moving back to West Virginia for family care and support. At the same time, data about heroin overdoses and high rates of new hepatitis C infections in Appalachian states indicate that the United States may be about to see a major increase in HIV in this region.  CAMC’s Linkage to Care coordinator travels to these rural areas weekly for home visits to clients; provides specialized education and psychosocial services, such as patient assessments, counseling, partner testing, crisis intervention, coordination of services for referrals, and other professional services; and contacts inactive clients to assess their healthcare needs and provide access to care. EJAF funding supports CAMC to demonstrate the feasibility of reaching at least 250 people across rural southern West Virginia with rapid home-based HIV testing, to ensure early detection and prevention of any future HIV outbreaks in that state.

Center for Health Justice, Los Angeles, CA
New Grant:  $75,000
Grant Name:  Taking Back Our Power
Grant Goal:  To train transgender individuals to be community leaders and advocates
Organization Description:  Center for Health Justice empowers individuals affected by incarceration to make healthier choices by providing programs and services that act as a bridge to a productive life. The Center is focused on serving incarcerated individuals and their families who are at high-risk for many serious health conditions; these individuals are also at a disadvantage in accessing quality medical care and support services that help them successfully reintegrate back into the community.
Grant Description:  Project activities include: (1) Reaching out to recruit, and enroll 70 incarcerated transgender individuals to participate in the program; (2) Providing group classes to 50 incarcerated transgender individuals on the underlying causes of discrimination and related health risks they face while incarcerated and post-release; (3) Addressing stigma in healthcare settings and the broader society and challenging discrimination that drives them away from HIV prevention, treatment, and care; (4) Engaging 35 post-incarcerated transgender individuals that completed the program’s educational components in activities that enable them to make positive changes in their lives, form healthy friendships and bond with their peers, and become leaders and advocates; and (5) Educating and informing public health professionals and criminal justice experts about incarcerated transgender people’s needs and how to incorporate similar programs within their own organizations and institutions.

Coastal Bend Wellness Foundation, Corpus Christi, TX
New Grant:  $60,000
Grant Name:  OUTYouth
Grant Goal:  To address health disparities in the LGBT community
Organization Description: Coastal Bend Wellness Foundation provides health and wellness initiatives through advocacy, awareness, and education.
Grant Description:  LGBT youth are often made to feel “lesser than” their straight counterparts and don’t have a safe area to congregate and discuss issues pertinent to them, receive mental health and wellness services, or to have a nurturing environment to meet other LGBT youth. South Texas does not have an LGBT center, nor are there active LGBT organizations that focus on youth.  OUTYouth helps fill this void by providing services to LGBT youth through support groups, cultural and social activities, substance abuse case management and outpatient treatment, individual and family counseling, prevention and education on HIV, sexually transmitted diseases, Hepatitis C, and PrEP, and linkage to medical care and HIV specific treatment.

Destination Tomorrow, Bronx, NY
New Grant:  $25,000
Grant Name:  Project R.E.A.L.
Grant Goal:  To help end the AIDS epidemic in New York by serving the needs of LGBTQ people of color
Organization Description:  Destination Tomorrow is a non-profit organization founded in 2009 to address the dire lack of LGBTQ services for people of color in the Bronx.  Their mission is to provide a life-affirming community center where members are able to access and participate in culturally competent services that improve health, social, educational, and employment outcomes for youth, adults, and the elderly.
Grant Description: This grant helps Destination Tomorrow expand its programs and services for Bronx-based LGBTQ residents to cover additional days and hours, including:  (1) a drop-in program for youth 13-24 every day from 5pm-10pm; (2) HIV counseling and case management; (3) a brand new computer coding program for young adults 18-26; (4) a free monthly legal clinic in partnership with the LGBT Law project, referral for comprehensive medical and mental health services in partnership with Montefiore Medical Center; and (5) Project R.E.A.L, a curriculum-based support group for transgender men who have sex with men, in addition to support groups for transgender women, youth, and the elderly.  In keeping with the goal of ending the HIV epidemic by 2020, Destination Tomorrow provides educational workshops around the usage of PrEP and PEP, as well as offering linkage to HIV testing.  The Program anticipates engaging 100 LGBTQ community members weekly, either in person, via telephone, or social media with many of them eventually seeking services from the center.

Feminist Women’s Health Center, Inc., Atlanta, GA
New Grant:  $55,000
Grant Name:  Black Women’s Wellness Initiative
Grant Goal:  To educate and empower black women to prevent the spread of HIV
Organization Description:  Feminist Women’s Health Center’s mission is to provide accessible, comprehensive gynecological healthcare to all who need it without judgment. The Center works collaboratively to promote reproductive health, rights, and justice and advocates for wellness, uncensored health information, and public policies by educating the community and empowering clients. The Center partners with Care and Counseling Center of Georgia, whose mission is to offer healing, wholeness, and hope to people in need.
Grant Description:  Black Women’s Wellness Initiative is a new project for black women at risk or living with HIV. Building on the Center’s health education expertise, project staff offer an HIV and AIDS prevention workshop led by and for black women, one of the fastest growing populations of new HIV diagnoses. Workshops occur regularly in the target communities as well as at the Center. Initiative participants also receive free HIV testing and counseling at the Center. Since relationship dynamics and emotional health affect a woman’s ability to exercise control over her sexual health, Care and Counseling Center of Georgia counselors provide, at no cost to the client, group empowerment and individual coaching as needed to help clients become champions of their health and address mental and behavioral health issues that they face.  Initiative clients are empowered through opportunities to engage as volunteers. With this additional training and experience, they may choose to become peer educators or advocates who safeguard rights to access HIV-related and other health services.

Harvard Law School/ Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, Jamaica Plain, MA
New Grant:  $100,000
Grant Name:  Health Care Rights Enforcement Project
Grant Goal:  To provide support for enforcement aimed at expanding access to health care
Organization Description:  The mission of the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School is to improve the health of vulnerable populations, reduce health disparities, support community education and advocacy capacity, enforce health care rights, and promote legal, regulatory, and policy reforms that contribute to a more equitable individual and public health environment.
Grant Description:  This project builds on the Center’s strong track record of policy advocacy related to health care access. The Center plays a key role in educating other advocates, consumers, providers, and policymakers about the opportunities and challenges involved in health care reform law and policy. With enactment of the major regulations of the Affordable Care Act now in place, The Center works to enforce the constellation of rights they afford. Enforcement is guided by the Center’s support of community-based coalitions, as well as by working directly with people living with HIV and their health and social service providers. The result is a holistic approach to the challenge of health care access along the continuum from outreach and education to enforcement and litigation.  The Center has compiled comprehensive information concerning health insurance plans offered under the Affordable Care Act. This work is designed to support enrollment decisions most in line with the needs of individuals living with HIV. A careful review of this data reveals increasing patterns of misconduct by insurers aimed at discouraging enrollment. For example, insurers are failing to cover HIV treatment regimens or covering them nominally, but placing necessary treatment into the highest cost-sharing tier. These tactics have the effect of discriminating against individuals on the basis of their health condition and are prohibited under the Affordable Care Act. Through litigation and enforcement actions in state and federal forums, this project breathes meaning into the Affordable Care Act’s promise of health insurance free from discrimination. Harvard Law School Staff and Fellows will work closely with local organizations to execute this program.

Health Frontiers in Tijuana, Tijuana, Mexico
New Grant:  $54,000
Grant Name:  Migrante Seguro
Grant Goal:  To provide improved HIV care for vulnerable migrants in the U.S.-Mexico border region
Organization Description:  The mission of Health Frontiers in Tijuana is to provide integrated physical and mental health care to the border region’s most vulnerable people, including migrants, deportees, people who inject or use drugs, sex workers, and other low-income populations living in Tijuana. The organization provides HIV care, preventive screenings and pre/post-test counseling for HIV, sexually transmitted infections, tuberculosis, referrals to social services, basic prescription medications, minor medical procedures,  mental health assessments and counseling services.
Grant Description: With this grant, Health Frontiers is creating a peer navigator program to improve migrants’ engagement in HIV care and when needed, mental health services, drug treatment, and legal counsel, and social services. Migrants living with HIV not linked to care are assigned to a peer navigator to receive their HIV care. Health Frontiers has the infrastructure to link patients via telemedicine to the only government public HIV clinic called through a high-speed internet and electronic medical record system.  The clinic is located over 20 miles from downtown Tijuana, making it inaccesible to low income migrants.  The peer navigator connects migrants living with HIV to the telemedicine program at Health Frontiers for their HIV care and assists patients in improving their engagement in HIV care across the HIV care continuum. Health Frontiers’ clinic has close ties with the general hospital and public mental health clinic in Tijuana to facilitate referrals and timely use of services.

HIV Studies Unit, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
New Grant:  $75,000
Grant Name:  PrEP in the context of sex work: Possibilities and limitations
Grant Goal:  To create meaningful involvement for sex workers in discussions of PrEP
Organization Description:  The University of Toronto is dedicated to fostering an academic community in which the learning and scholarship of every member may flourish, with vigilant protection for individual human rights, and a resolute commitment to the principles of equal opportunity, equity, and justice.
Grant Description:  This project works to:  (1) Build the knowledge and capacity of sex workers and advocates in the science, implementation, and bioethics of PrEP for more meaningful involvement in setting PrEP implementation recommendations and identifying PrEP research gaps; (2) Facilitate communication and networking among sex workers, advocates, and PrEP experts; (3) Create a community-based portal for networking and the exchange of information pertaining to PrEP in the context of sex work in Canada; (4) Organize and conduct a community-based consultation among sex workers and advocates supported by the presence of PrEP experts; (5) Develop recommendations for the implementation and scale up of PrEP-related activities for female, male and transgender sex workers and their clients and partners in Canada; and (6) Enable a lobbying mechanism to help to ensure that future PrEP-related activities within the context of sex work occur within a rights-based framework.

Jamaica AIDS Support for Life, Kingston, Jamaica
New Grant:  $75,000
Grant Name:  Access to HIV Services for Transgender People in Jamaica
Grant Goal:  To offer health-related services to Jamaican transgender individuals
Organization Description:  Jamaica AIDS Support for Life is the oldest and largest AIDS, human rights, non-governmental organization in Jamaica and has been in existence since 1991.  The organization aims to be a world class leader creating and utilizing best practices in the delivery of services to persons living with and affected by HIV and AIDS in Jamaica and participating in the fight against the spread of HIV and AIDS in an enabling environment.
Grant Description:  With EJAF funding, Jamaica AIDS Support for Life seeks to: (1) Link 50 transgender women to HIV-related prevention, treatment, care, and support services at the organization; (2) Educate 30 transgender women on health, human rights, and life skills; (3) Build the capacity of 15 transgender women to advocate for changes in public health-care policies and practices; and (4) Sensitize health and social policy-makers on issues affecting transgender people.

Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center, Memphis, TN
New Grant:  $75,000
Grant Name:  The Memphis SYNAPSE Project
Grant Goal:  To work with black gay families to create solutions to HIV in Memphis
Organization Description:  The Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center empowers, connects, educates, and advocates for the LGBT community of the Mid-South.
Grant Description: The social groups partnering with the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center  in The Memphis SYNAPSE Project include gay families and other social networks with deep community roots. The participants themselves are Black Americans and include gay men, bisexual men, and transgender women.  EJAF’s funding helps the Center to build on the foundation already laid by:  (1) adding at-home tests to the Center’s HIV testing program; (2) providing secure funding for supportive social groups for black MSMs and transgender women, (3) funding a PSA created by a SYNAPSE family used to promote the program and these new services; and (4) helping to start Healthy Relationships, an evidence-based intervention for HIV+ adults that the Center will use as the base for new HIV+ supportive services.  For all of these projects, the Center continues to partner with the University of Memphis/University of Massachusetts research team, surveying and conducting focus groups with participants of all funded projects and collecting data the Center will use to change and add services.

Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services, Inc. (PALSS), Columbia, SC
New Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  Expansion of Clinical Services
Grant Goal:  To improve standard of care by hiring a Nurse Practitioner
Organization Description:  Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services (PALSS), the oldest AIDS service organization in South Carolina, was founded in 1985 in response to the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic and the lack of resources available to persons living with HIV in South Carolina. The organization’s mission is to provide education, health, housing, and human services to persons living with and communities affected by chronic disease, with an historical focus on HIV and AIDS.
Grant Description:  PALSS has been providing testing and diagnosis services to people living with or at risk for HIV/AIDS for 30 years, but has not been in a position to provide treatment services on-site due to lack of qualified staffing. The agency must refer clients elsewhere for treatment. Clients may be forced to wait for an appointment to become available, or even worse, not pursue treatment. This grant helps PALSS to significantly expand and improve its clinical services by hiring a Nurse Practitioner to provide high-quality primary health care to the organization’s predominantly Black American clients.

Project Weber, Providence, RI
New Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  Supporting Rhode Island’s Sex Workers through HIV Testing, Service Linkage, and Community Building
Grant Goal:  To provide health and support services to male sex workers in Rhode Island
Organization Description:  The purpose of Project Weber is to provide peer health education, comprehensive risk reduction counseling, supportive referrals, and cutting-edge research services that meet the needs of the male sex worker community in Rhode Island.
Grant Description: Project Weber trains peer outreach workers (former sex workers themselves) to distribute condoms, lube, and free needles directly to sex workers while they are on the job. The Project provides HIV and hepatitis C testing both in the field and at their drop-in center;  trains clients how to use naloxone (the antidote for opiate overdose); and helps them sign up for health insurance, public housing, and food stamps. Clients are linked (and re-linked) to drug addiction recovery programs through a non-judgmental community of support. Project Weber partners with Fenway Health, AIDS Care Ocean State, the Miriam Hospital, Brown University, and many other organizations to provide this wide range of services to a population that is regularly turned away and stigmatized by society during the most difficult times of their lives. EJAF funding helps Project Weber train more peer educators, keep their drop-in center doors open longer, and expand services to more sex workers throughout the state.

Rainbow Railroad, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
New Grant:  $40,000
Grant Name:  Finding a safe haven for persecuted LGBT individuals from Jamaica who are affected by HIV
Grant Goal:  To help seven LGBT individuals affected by HIV escape state-sponsored violence
Organization Description:  The Rainbow Railroad helps LGBT individuals find a safe-haven from state-enabled violence, murder, or persecution in various countries by working with local organizations to identify and verify cases.  The program then provides resources on seeking asylum, connections to local support, and funds for travel costs and airfare to a safer destination where the individual can claim asylum.   Over 80% of the cases Rainbow Railroad has assisted from Jamaica are either HIV positive or at very high risk of HIV due to homophobic marginalization.
Grant Description: This grant helps seven LGBT individuals from Jamaica who are affected by HIV travel to a safe-haven.  Once individuals are confirmed to be in danger, the program helps them identify a route to a safer country where they can claim asylum. The route to safety and support provided depends on the circumstances of each individual. The Rainbow Railroad has a proven track record of helping individuals from Jamaica safely travel to Canada, the USA, and Western Europe. Case work is led by two volunteer Board Members who are both LGBT refugees from Jamaica and each formerly served as Chairs of J-FLAG. Rainbow Railroad provides financial assistance for short-term accommodations, local travel costs, and airfare to a safer country, as well as information on the asylum process and connections to resources in their destination country.  Additionally, Rainbow Railroad invests in volunteer recruitment and improvements to process and resources.

The Red Door Foundation, Memphis, TN
New Grant:  $10,000
Grant Name:  Saving Ourselves Symposium
Grant Goal:  To addresses HIV within the community through partnerships and dialogue
Organization Description:  The mission of The Red Door Foundation is to promote social awareness, unity, self- empowerment, mentorship, and positive visibility throughout the Memphis/ Shelby County community of color through education, health promotion, advocacy, and coalition building in order to change the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS, increase HIV/AIDS awareness in the Black community, and to be a catalyst for change.
Grant Description:  The Saving Ourselves Symposium provides a variety of plenary sessions to address the multiple health outcomes that Black LGBT individuals face, including conversations surrounding mental health, sex and sexuality, PrEP and/or PEP, and promising practices that have been effective in addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The Symposium also links research and practice in a manner that explores the multiple ways that research has advanced HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention. The Symposium offers consumers with promising practices on how to best address health and wellness issues with their medical and other service providers.  Finally, the Symposium provides workshops and facilitates conversations with direct care providers as a way of teaching and empowering participants on how to best overcome obstacles surrounding their struggles with sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or HIV status.

Selma AIR, Selma, AL
New Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  Man UP: A Program of Purpose and Empowerment
Grant Goal:  To educate and empower men on HIV
Organization Description:  Selma AIR works to prevent the spread of HIV and deaths from AIDS across the Black Belt of Alabama by providing comprehensive educational opportunities, access to quality health services including free HIV testing, and resources related to improving the quality of life for persons living with the virus.
Grant Description:  Man UP: A Program of Purpose and Empowerment provides education, testing, and advocacy resources to improve the wellness of men living/working across West-Central Alabama’s Black Belt. The 4,000 Man UP participants receive a minimum of six (6) hours of HIV education from certified facilitators of the federally-approved curriculum NIA, are asked to take an HIV-test, and given the opportunity to become members of the Man UP Coalition, a group of at least ten (10) men of mixed HIV status empowered to educate other men about male sexual health and HIV. Men who join the Man UP Coalition become accessible resources to their community, help other men become more responsible for their sexual health, and encourage safer sexual behaviors among their peers. Members of the Coalition help produce a series of public service announcements (PSA’s) geared towards improving sexual wellness for men. The PSA’s are broadcast on radio stations covering Alabama’s Black Belt.

SisterLove, Inc., Atlanta, GA
New Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  TLC (Testing and Linkage to Care) Youth Advocacy Campaign
Grant Goal:  To increase HIV testing and  advocacy efforts for youth and LGBTQ youth in Atlanta
Organization Description:  SisterLove Inc.’s mission is to eradicate the adverse impact of HIV/AIDS and other reproductive health challenges on women and their families through education, prevention, support, and  human rights advocacy in the United States and around the world.
Grant Description: In 2014, SisiterLove Inc. launched its TLC4ALL (Testing and Linkage to Care for All) campaign, which recognizes that in order to eliminate the health disparities seen throughout the HIV/AIDS pandemic, every person tested for HIV must be linked to some form of care. This means (1)  More people must be tested; (2) HIV-negative persons must be linked to programs that maintain negative status; and (3) HIV-positive persons must be linked to treatment immediately and remain in care. As part of a “prevention continuum,” SisterLove Inc. seeks to expand its reach to include more youth, HIV+ youth, and LGBTQ youth. Project activities include: (1) providing free testing and counseling services for 300 youth at risk for HIV; (2) hosting two youth-led Advocacy Days at the Georgia Capitol; (3) hosting 12 youth support groups for youth infected and affected by HIV; (4) engaging 500 youth in advocacy campaign activities online; (5) publishing a policy paper looking at Georgia policies that relate to youth and HIV; and (6) presenting project findings at two youth conferences.

South Carolina HIV/AIDS Council, Columbia, SC
New Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  The Elite Society of the Undetectbles: A Replication Model to Advance Linkage to Care and Treatment Adherence
Grant Goal:  To implement an alternative treatment adherence/retention support group model
Organization Description:  Through prevention, education and advocacy, the South Carolina HIV/AIDS Council’s mission is to disproportionately impact the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexual transmitted infections within the state of South Carolina.
Grant Description:  The Elite Society of the Undetectables Initiative is a replication of a successful effort piloted first by Aid Atlanta.  The program includes: (1) Consultant facilitation of the Society model throughout the Columbia metro area; ( 2) technical assistance to adapt and expand this treatment adherence model locally; and (3) creation of the first Elite Society Chapter in South Carolina. Other Society activities include: a) face-to- face booster sessions and webinar technical assistance to the Society’s PLWHA Leadership Council and Coordinator;  b) social marketing and learning tool development for the Society’s Council and membership; c) creation of a Society web site domain; and d) coordination of at least two Elite Society Celebration Dinners (spring/winter) for people living with HIV/AIDS who achieve/maintain viral suppression.

South Carolina HIV Task Force, Columbia, SC
New Grant:  $25,000
Grant Name:  South Carolina HIV Task Force – Advocacy and Outreach
Grant Goal:  To ensure the orchestration of HIV-related advocacy work in South Carolina
Organization Description:  The mission of the South Carolina HIV Task Force is to advocate for the expansion and strengthening of HIV/ STD/ Hep C prevention, care, treatment, support and education throughout the state of South Carolina.
Grant Description:  This grant supports the South Carolina HIV Task Force’s current momentum in advocating for issues identified in the National HIV/AIDS Strategy and developing statewide commitments to increase HIV testing and increased access to care and reduction of HIV-related health disparities.  The grant helps strengthen the Task Force’s internal organizational capacity and sustainability to coordinate state-wide HIV advocacy and policy initiatives. Specifically, the Task Force documents the ways in which state and city budgets impact healthcare access for people living with HIV, and uses this information to support advocacy at a state level. The Task Force builds connections with non-HIV related organizations that assist the Task Force in creating a stronger advocacy platform for HIV as a civil rights and gender equality issue. The Task Force utilizes an intersectional approach, which includes fostering Task Force membership and engagement within those organizations, as well as coordinating efforts to ensure their future participation in HIV, health disparity, civil, and human rights-related advocacy efforts.

SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW!, Atlanta, GA
New Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  Fierce Youth Reclaiming and Empowering (FYRE) Program/Speak Justice Take Action
Grant Goal:  To expand the organization’s advocacy and LGBTQ youth leadership development program
Organization Description:  SPARK collaborates with individuals, organizations, and communities to build and sustain a powerful reproductive justice movement in Georgia and the South. Most importantly, SPARK ensures the voices of women of color, young parents, and LGBTQ youth of color living in the South are included in the reproductive rights and justice movements.
Grant Description:  This grant funds policy work, litigation and advocacy on healthcare-access-related issues, in correlation to HIV-related issues (e.g. discrimination, rights), community organizing (coalition work, leadership development, etc.), as well as media and communications (journalism, film, media, etc.) efforts centered around the LGBTQ youth population. EJAF funding also supports programs that mobilize youth leaders to promote sexual health, healthcare mobilization and access to adequate care. The program provides public education, outreach, and leadership development for queer youth of color, who often are low-income, uninsured individuals and lack access to preventive care and healthcare services, and recruits them to help in the transforming of healthcare in Georgia. The program also builds intergenerational dialogues through advocacy in order to increase partnerships between women of color and LGBTQ youth of color in Georgia.

St. James Infirmary, San Francisco, CA
New Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  St. James Infirmary and Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project’s Wraparound Reentry and Advocacy Program
Grant Goal:  To provide a peer-led reentry program for currently and recently incarcerated transgender, gender variant,  and intersex people
Organization Description:  St. James Infirmary’s mission is to provide free, compassionate, and nonjudgmental healthcare and social services for sex workers (current or former) of all genders and sexual orientations while preventing occupational illnesses and injuries through a comprehensive continuum of services.  The Transgender Gender Varient Intersex Justice Project’s mission is to challenge and end the human rights abuses committed against transgender, gender variant and intersex people, especially transgender women, in California prisons and beyond.
Grant Description: This EJAF grant provides first-ever funding to formalize the effective, yet previously unfunded partnership of the Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project and St. James Infirmary in order to  provide transgender, gender variant, and intersex individuals with support and advocacy throughout their incarceration, release, and re-entry. Through letter writing, visitation, and groups within jails and prisons, the Justice Project advocates for the rights of transgender, gender variant, and intersex people, provides support, and plans for their reentry. Upon release, the Justice Project and St. James Infirmary provide access to food, clothing, and housing support services, as well as mental and physical healthcare, including support for HIV+ individuals and individuals who utilize (frequently injection-based) hormone replacement therapy. Beyond meeting the immediate life needs of its participants, this program also seeks to invest in the leadership development and community building of currently and formerly incarcerated transgender, gender variant, and intersex people by providing peer-driven job training, skills building, and employment opportunities.

The Thrive Tribe Foundation, Los Angeles, CA
New Grant:  $25,000
Grant Name:  ADAP/OA-HIPP Enrollment Assistance
Grant Goal:  To assist HIV-positive members with ADAP/OA-HIPP enrollment/re-enrollment
Organization Description:  The mission of The Thrive Tribe Foundation is to achieve zero transmission of HIV with or without a cure, by reinventing the HIV story and developing connected communities through support and education. The Thrive Tribe Foundation is a peer-based and peer-led organization applying today’s science to this 30+ year epidemic to actually reduce HIV transmission below the 50,000+ per year America has been stuck at since 1998. The Foundation employs a unique formula which includes connection to treatment for the positive and access to PrEP for negative men.
Grant Description:  This grant supports the hiring of a part-time Enrollment Counselor to provide assistance and guidance for members who are enrolling or re-enrolling in the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) or the California State Office of AIDS Health Insurance Premium Payment (OA-HIPP) program. These programs improve access to essential care for people living with HIV, including medications (ADAP) and assistance with health insurance premiums (OA-HIPP). The Enrollment Counselor (1) works with members to collect documentation, fill out forms, and submit enrollment packages; (2) assists members with semi-annual re-enrollment, including tracking dates, sending reminders, providing assistance with documents and forms; (3) advocates for the rights of members; and (4) collaborates with the Peer Navigator to educate new members about coverage options and to assist current members with staying engaged in care during life events that affect coverage (such as job loss, divorce, moving, etc.).

The TransLatin@ Coalition, Los Angeles, CA
New Grant:  $75,000
Grant Name:  Surviving People Unveiling New Knowledge (SPUNK)
Grant Goal:  To provide newly released trans-women with peer navigation and support services
Organization Description:  The TransLatin@ Coalition’s mission is to advocate for the specific needs of Trans Latin@ immigrants who reside in the U.S. and plan advocacy strategies that would improve quality of life.
Grant Description:  Surviving People Unveiling New Knowledge (SPUNK) supports immigrant transgender women recently released from incarceration, including Immigration Customs Enforcement detention centers, and helps them integrate into American society with the assistance of a peer support navigator. EJAF funding supports the hiring of a Peer Navigator to focus on assessing the specific needs of the participants and to create a step-by-step plan to support these women throughout their journey of integration. The Peer Navigator provides referrals; helps participants make appointments and navigate the legal, housing, and healthcare system; empowers participants to attend support groups and workshops that provide education and support on accessing available services and advocating for HIV, transgender, and immigration rights. The life skills that participants develop in SPUNK workshops can be applied beyond the program to secure employment, as well as to manage their overall health.

Translatina Network, New York, NY
New Grant:  $5,000
Grant Name:  Translatina Network Espiritu
Grant Goal:  To provide capacity building funds to train three Peer Ambassadors
Organization Description:  The mission of the Translatina Network is to promote equality with fair and lasting rights for all Latina transgender women at local, state and federal levels allowing direct involvement in the creation of effective strategies resulting in the eradication of all types of exclusion, discrimination, and transphobia towards transgender Latinas in the United States.
Grant Description: Despite community efforts to reduce the risk of HIV infection for transgender women of color and Black and Latino men who have sex with men, the data continues to indicate that these community members remain disproportionately impacted by the HIV epidemic.  In New York City, from 2007-2011, there were 191 new diagnoses of HIV infection among transgender people, 99% of which were among transgender women and approximately 90% of transgender women newly diagnosed with HIV infection were Blacks or Latinos. With this grant, Translatina Network trains three Translatina ambassadors to provide culturally sensitive HIV education workshops to 300 high risk community members throughout the New York City area. Translatina ambassadors receive training on evidence-based HIV risk reduction and prevention strategies, trainer facilitation training, and workshop materials. The Translatina ambassadors also conduct research to develop a guide of up-to-date community resources to provide all participants who attend the education workshop.

Trans Women of Color Collective, Washington, DC
New Grant:  $25,000
Grant Name:  Healing and Restorative Justice Institute (HRJI)
Grant Goal:  To provide operational costs (staff, rent) to sustain programing
Organization Description:  The mission of the Trans Women of Color Collective is to uplift the experiences, lived narratives, and leadership of trans and gender non-conforming people of color.
Grant Description:  This EJAF grant funds the Trans Women of Color Collective to support the leadership and lives of trans women of color in Washington, DC, a population with a very high prevalence of HIV. This program engages the practice of using art as a tool of healing through writing workshops, dance, and meditation that guide participants in the process of healing from pain and trauma and help facilitate pathways for other medicines to have a greater success rate.   Commonly utilized healing techniques engage participants through a holistic communal view and combine guided meditation and teach techniques that participants can incorporate in their daily lives. The program’s advocacy component enhances the organizing and strategizing skills and knowledge of participants as well as raise awareness of how structural oppression manifest in all our lives through policy lectures, workshops, presentations, direct actions and peer education.   Participants access Leadership Development through a peer mentorship program that pairs youth with seasoned organizers across the country to follow up with activities and engage in post session surveys. Ultimately, the lives of trans women of color matter, and this project helps dozens of people to become more empowered to claim and sustain their health and rights.

University of California/San Diego, San Diego, CA
New Grant:  $50,000
Grant Name:  Acceso
Grant Goal:  To provide comprehensive HIV and mental health services among all MSM in the border
Organization Description: The University of California San Diego School of Medicine, in collaboration with the General Hospital in Tijuana and a network of grass roots organizations in Tijuana, Mexico, provides free medical services in Tijuana at a clinic called the Accesso clinic.  This Acceso clinic provides regular care to approximately 100 patients living with HIV.  Most of these HIV-positive patients are gay or bisexual Mexican men living in Tijuana, while approximately 20% are migrants passing through Tijuana or U.S. citizens living in Mexico.
Grant Description:  The Tijuana Acceso clinic has found that over half of its 100 HIV-positive clients struggle with addiction and more than a third report moderate to severe depression. To respond to this need for mental health and substance use services, this project intensifies the mental health services offered to Accesso clients, advocatea for improved mental health and substance use services in Tijuana, and trains 60 physicians about non-discriminatory competent care for gay and bisexual men, trans people, and people living with HIV.

University of Puerto Rico-Medical Sciences Campus, San Juan, Puerto Rico
New Grant:  $85,000
Grant Name:  Addressing stigma among transgender populations in Puerto Rico
Grant Goal:  To implement strategies to reduce stigma among trans people in Puerto Rico
Organization Description:  The University of Puerto Rico-Medical Sciences Campus aims to be a leading center for higher education and health sciences, educating healthcare professionals, promoting health, and conducting health research, all to advance knowledge and improve health conditions in Puerto Rico.
Grant Description:  The goal of this project is to implement an intervention that combines two strategies to enhance health services utilization and retention in care among Spanish-speaking trans individuals at increased risk for HIV in the San Juan Metropolitan area in Puerto Rico: (1) an individual-level intervention based on motivational interviewing targeted to trans individuals to reduce the impact of stigma (both HIV-stigma and sexuality-related stigma surrounding transgenderism and transsexuality) in a community sample of HIV-/HIV+ and HIV-status unknown individuals; and (2) a system-level capacity building intervention with HIV healthcare providers. The expected outcomes of this project are to reduce social isolation, increase engagement in health services, improve health-related decision making, and reduce health disparities.

SPECIAL GRANT TO EJAF-UK

Elton John AIDS Foundation, London
New Grant:  $800,000
Grant Description: Earlier this year, EJAF-US received an $800,000 gift, and the donor stipulated that these funds specifically support programs in sub-Saharan Africa. Accordingly, we recommend awarding this grant to our sister foundation in the United Kingdom as this request falls within their geographic purview. These funds support EJAF-UK’s African grant-making program that includes HIV information dissemination, testing, and linkage to treatment for 15-19 year olds, the group with the fastest growing HIV prevalence in Africa. Grant investments focus on the five African countries with the largest proportion of adolescents living with HIV: South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, and Ethiopia.

October 2015 Grants

On October 21, 2105 EJAF announced a new series of grants totaling $4.4 million to support organizations fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic in critical and innovative ways. The Foundation renewed 16 grants and funding nine new organizations to scale up programs that address societal trends driving the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This is one of EJAF’s largest grant cycles to date. “For more than 20 years, the Elton John AIDS Foundation has been committed to confronting the HIV/AIDS epidemic where it exists,” said EJAF Founder Elton John. “Our newest round of grants supports exciting and innovative projects addressing transgender health, homeless LGBT youth, the continued criminalization of HIV-positive people, and the syringe services for people who inject drugs. We also remain focused on increasing access to HIV prevention, treatment, and care for all.”

RENEWAL GRANTS

AIDS Community Research Initiative of America (ACRIA), New York, NY
Renewal Grant: $50,000
Grant Name: General Organizational Support
Grant Goal: To provide general support for the organization
Organization Description: Founded in 1991, ACRIA is a longtime community organization supporting the study of new treatments for HIV, contributing to the development of nearly 20 FDA-approved medications over the past two decades and thereby helping countless thousands live longer and healthier lives. Since 2003, ACRIA has studied the lives and service needs of people with or at risk for HIV through its Applied and Translational Research Program. Its Training Center, meanwhile, offers critical HIV-related training, capacity-building assistance, and technical assistance to health and human services professionals, as well as to those with and at risk for HIV.  With EJAF support in 2014, ACRIA organized monthly “Living with HIV” educational workshops attended by approximately 80 HIV-positive people seeking to learn the basics about HIV-related healthcare, including guidance about how to talk with doctors and other providers about HIV medications, viral loads, and other questions. In addition to the workshops, ACRIA provided one-to-one counseling for people to help them with their individual questions and service needs.
Grant Description: This year’s grant broadly supports ACRIA’s programs and its continued technical and logistical support to fellow organizations serving people living with and most at-risk for HIV. ACRIA is also conducting research into the unique needs of people over 50 with HIV, a group that will soon comprise 70% of all people with HIV in the U.S. Finally, this grant supports ACRIA’s essential advocacy work at city, state, and federal levels, which will be especially important in the coming year as states, such as New York State, begin to implement blueprints for ending AIDS by 2020.

AIDS United, Washington, DC
Renewal Grant: $300,000
Grant Name: General Organizational Support
Grant Goal: To provide general support for the organization
Organization Description: Created by a merger between the National AIDS Fund and AIDS Action in late 2010, AIDS United’s mission is to end the HIV epidemic in the United States. It seeks to fulfill this goal through strategic grant making, capacity building, formative research, and policy advocacy. AIDS United’s grant-making efforts date back to the founding of the National AIDS Fund in 1987. Over the years, AIDS United has managed strategic initiatives that have directly awarded more than $91 million in grants to local communities and have leveraged an additional $115 million in investments for them. In addition to grant making, AIDS United has provided capacity-building support and technical assistance to more than 300 organizations across the country to help them implement interventions such as syringe access, HIV-related healthcare, HIV prevention, and HIV policy work and advocacy. AIDS United’s policy and advocacy roots, more than three decades old, underscore its expertise and experience in advocating for people living with and affected by HIV and the organizations that serve them. Its public policy work is informed by the nation’s largest coalition of community organizations responding to HIV.
Grant Description: Many organizations like AIDS United receive significant amounts of project-specific funding. In many cases this creates a need for general operating funds that enable the organization to think creatively and strategically about new approaches and to response quickly to the changing needs of the epidemic.  EJAF’s general operating grant ensures AIDS United’s enduring role as an indespensible organization to drive efforts to end the HIV epidemic in the United States. AIDS United continues to successfully implement its EJAF-supported Access to Care Portfolio as well as its Sector Transformation Initiative, which is designed to help organizations and individuals adapt to the constant advances in HIV treatment and changes to healthcare delivery in this country.  AIDS United has prioritized building strong organizations and coalitions in areas of the country hardest hit by the epidemic, including the Southern U.S., and its AmeriCorps HIV Service Team is fostering a new generation of leadership in the fight against HIV. While the above programs represent a broad array of the programs and services offered by AIDS United, general funds without specific restrictions also allow AIDS United to explore new strategies, support innovation on the ground that does not fit within a particular restricted initiative, and amplify unheard voices in the field. These include AIDS United’s “We Shall not be Removed” Google Hangout series addressing the unique concerns of black gay and bisexual men, the intersection of trauma and HIV, and policies on criminalization of HIV.

Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, Toronto, Ontario
Renewal Grant: $50,000
Grant Name: Criminal Law and HIV: New Educational Tools and Advocacy Strategies to Defend People Living with HIV
Grant Goals: To educate the public about HIV criminalization, create positive change in public policy, and support individuals negatively affected by HIV criminalization
Organization Description:  The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network is a global leader in the fight for human rights and against HIV. Since 1992, it has been working to ensure that all people, especially people living with and affected by HIV, enjoy the full range of basic human rights, including the right to health.  The Network is a leader in the fight against unjust criminalization of people living with HIV.
Grant Description:  This grant supports the Network’s efforts to:  (1) Educate the public about the misuse of sexual assault law to prosecute HIV non-disclosure by organizing screenings of the Network’s 30-minute documentary Consent in Canada and the U.S.; (2) Conduct training sessions to help lawyers understand the new and emerging science about HIV transmission risk and treatment, possible defense strategies in court cases, and human rights issues arising from HIV-related prosecutions; and  (3) Streamline access to the Network’s many resources on the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure by updating its website in two ways: i) designing a more user-friendly navigation system for its voluminous online resource kit for lawyers, and ii) creating a new criminalization ‘hub page’ in order to make it easier to navigate its many online tools.

Clinton Health Access Inititative (CHAI), New York, NY Renewal Grant: $20,000
Grant Name: Building Capacity and Sustainability to Increase Access to HIV Treatment and Care in Jamaica
Grant Goal:  To provide support for the final months of the organization’s operations in Jamaica following the successful conclusion of their work
Organization Description: The Clinton Health Access Initiative was founded in 2002 with a transformational goal: to help save the lives of millions of people living with HIV in the developing world by dramatically scaling up HIV treatment. The Initiative’s current thematic priorities include: HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, global health spending, malaria, human resources for health, vaccines, and maternal, newborn, and child mortality.
Grant Description:  The Clinton Health Access Initiative has been supporting the Jamaican Ministry of Health to scale up national investment in HIV programming through a coordinated national strategy to control and reduce HIV in the country. Having accomplished many of its original goals, CHAI’s work in Jamaica will conclude in December 2015. The Elton John AIDS Foundation has provided over $2.7 million to the William J. Clinton Foundation/Clinton Health Access Initiative since 2008. This final grant of $20,000 supports CHAI to successfully conclude its work in the Caribbean. This crucial final phase includes assisting the Ministry and healthcare institutions to: (1) improve patient retention rates by monitoring a cash incentive program already in place and doubling the number of pharmacies serving the western health region; and (2) reduce the number of new infections by expanding HIV testing programs in public hospitals and implementing a referral and linkage protocol to identify and enroll newly diagnosed HIV-positive persons into treatment and care. Finally, CHAI will share tools and strategies to help improve data collection, analysis, and reporting and work with the Jamaican National Health Program to efficiently transition all critical projects before the Initiative’s departure in December 2015.

HarborPath, Columbia, SC
Renewal Grant:  $100,000
Grant Name: HarborPath Outreach and Portal Program Expansion
Grant Goals: To support a web-based platform that helps people in need access opportunities for free or discounted HIV medication
Organization Description: HarborPath was launched in 2012 to improve access to HIV medications through patient assistance programs. Its core approach is to centralize and streamline the program application process for people living with HIV who are uninsured and have no other access to HIV medications. Toward that end, HarborPath operates an electronic, online common portal where case managers and patient advocates can access HIV medications and process HIV patient assistance program applications. A common portal eliminates burdensome, duplicative paperwork normally required to submit individual patient assistance applications and ensures that medications are delivered to patients in a coordinated and efficient manner.
Grant Description: EJAF was a founding funder of HarborPath in 2012 and since that time has provided over $600,000 in support. This year’s grant supports expansion of their online portal to connect with people most in need of assistance, as well as meet the need for increased capacity due to higher application and prescription volumes.

Kaiser Family Foundation, Menlo Park, CA
Renewal Grant:  $150,000
Grant Name: Greater Than AIDS “We Are Family” Campaign: Increasing Social Support for Young MSM Living with HIV in the South
Grant Goals: To improve knowledge and understanding of HIV risks and treatment options through public education
Organization Description: A leader in health policy analysis, health journalism, and communication, the Kaiser Family Foundation is dedicated to providing trusted information on national health issues and on national U.S. investments in global health. Since 2010, EJAF has supported the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Greater Than AIDS (GTA) program with grants totaling $1.525 million for GTA Pride, a campaign to reach gay men with messages to promote open communication about HIV in relationships, with health care providers, and within the wider LGBT community.
Grant Description: Through its GTA Pride project, Greater Than AIDS produces media messages and related resources to highlight the importance of social networks in the health and well-being of people living with HIV. Social support is strongly associated with improved mental and physical health for people living with HIV, yet lack of understanding allows HIV stigma to persist, which deters people from getting tested or treated for HIV. This campaign counteracts those stereotypes and provides tools for supporting loved ones with HIV. Produced as an extension of Greater Than AIDS’s new “We Are Family” campaign, the messaging is directed at family and other loved ones of young gay and bisexual men of color. The campaign includes video profiles of many of these men living with HIV in the South and their loved ones to present models of supportive relationships. The profiles are edited for digital distribution and used to support community discussions and engage key leadership and community service organizations. Targeted informational resources provide practical guidance.

National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD), Washington, DC
Renewal Grant: $60,000
Grant Name: Drug User Health Innovation Learning Collaborative
Grant Goal: To support the next phase of the organization’s research about state policies affecting access to mental health and substance use services by people living with HIV
Organization Description: NASTAD is a non-profit organization made up of public health officials who lead state health departments and administer state-funded HIV and viral hepatitis programs. It seeks to achieve its mission—to reduce the incidence of HIV and viral hepatitis infections in the U.S.—by bringing these officials together and providing opportunities for sharing knowledge and experiences from different areas of the country.
Grant Description: EJAF support helps provide NASTAD with sufficient resources to manage a wide-ranging, detailed, and successful Learning Collaborative.  Through this Collaborative, NASTAD hosts an online distance learning platform, providing technical assistance to meet participants’ needs, and facilitate an in-person consultation dedicated to the intersection of mental health and physical health programming for people who use drugs. A key component of the consultation focuses on engaging with federal partners to share recommendations to broaden access to overall drug user health.

National Black Justice Coalition, Washington, DC
Renewal Award: $200,000
Grant Name: Black LGBT Health and Wellness Initiative
Grant Goals: To identify and cultivate the next generation of young Black LGBTQ leaders and engage them in the fight against HIV/AIDS
Organization Description: The National Black Justice Coalition is the nation’s leading civil rights organization dedicated to empowering Black LGBT people and working to strengthen the bonds and bridge the gaps between the movements for racial justice and LGBT equality.
Grant Description: In 2014, with support from a $100,000 grant from EJAF, the National Black Justice Coalition launched its Black LGBT Health and Wellness Initiative to address the current health crises and disparities that impact the Black LGBT populace, including the HIV epidemic. With increased support for this second year, NBJC continues to expand its tour of historically Black colleges and universities to engage 3,000 students, administrators, and healthcare providers in Washington, DC, and five southern states – Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, and Texas. EJAF support helps National Black Justice Coalition foster young leadership with their 100 Black LGBT Emerging Leaders to Watch Campaign, which works with young leaders from the community around the country to i) disseminate HIV prevention, care, and treatment messaging, and ii) increase HIV advocacy efforts affecting the Black LGBT community; (3) promote comprehensive HIV prevention among the Black community—particularly black gay men and transgender women—by engaging at least 25 local, regional, and national organizational partners to designate at least four lead partner organizations in each target state; and (4) maintain a presence at key conferences—e.g., OUT on the Hill Black LGBT Leadership Summit, Black LGBT Emerging Leaders Day, and Creating Change: The Black Institute—to facilitate programming that brings attention to HIV and showcases efforts to end the epidemic.

Point Foundation, New York, NY
Renewal Grant: $100,000
Grant Name: Non-Profit Internships and Consortium Project
Grant Goals:  To provide LGBTQ college students with real world experiences and internship opportunities at HIV nonprofit organizations in order to ensure the continued emergence of the next generation of HIV activists
Organization Description: Founded in 2001, Point Foundation supports promising lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students to achieve their full academic potential to make a significant impact on society. Through scholarships, mentorships, internships, community service, and leadership training, Point Foundation supports LGBTQ scholars of merit and prepares them to become successful professionals and advocates for their communities.
Grant Description: This grant supports a second year of Point Scholars with 12 paid internships at nonprofit organizations that focus on combating the HIV epidemic within the LGBTQ community. These internships include a total of eight part-time, 12-week opportunities during the fall and winter academic terms and four full-time, 10-week opportunities during the summer (June-August). The grant also supports a one-day symposium about the state of HIV within the LGBTQ community held at the conclusion of the grant term. This symposium gives interns the opportunity to discuss what they learned during their experiences, thereby increasing the reach of their work and helping them consider how they might be engaged in critical advocacy work in the future.

SERO Project, Milford, PA
Renewal Grant: $75,000
Grant Name: HIV Is Not a Crime
Grant Goals: To help individuals affected negatively by HIV criminalization and to work at the state level across the country to advance legislation that corrects these laws
Organization Description: In 2012, EJAF became the primary founding funder of the SERO Project, a national coalition of people living with HIV who are combating HIV-related criminalization, discrimination, and stigma. The SERO Project focuses on helping people who have been subjected to prosecution for ‘HIV crimes’ to become public speakers and advocates for improved laws and policies.
Grant Description: This EJAF grant supports SERO’s efforts to (1) continue state-level advocacy to reform HIV criminal statutes, with a particular focus on Florida, Idaho, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Missouri; (2) conduct its second national conference on HIV criminalization; (3) conduct regional and state-specific training conferences for criminalization reform efforts; (4) expand its Network Empowerment Project, including the creation of a toolkit to foster and strengthen the growth of networks of people living with HIV, especially those representing key populations; (5) continue coordinating a supportive network of people affected by unjust HIV criminal laws; and (6) complete and distribute a resource guide for people with HIV or hepatitis who are incarcerated.

Sylvia Rivera Law Project, New York, NY
Renewal Grant: $50,000
Grant Name: Transgender Health Initiative
Grant Goal:  To improve programs serving low-income transgender people in New York State
Organization Description: The Sylvia Rivera Law Project works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence. Its approach combines direct legal services with litigation, policy reform advocacy, public education, and community organizing to address the problems that prevent low-income transgender people and transgender people of color from fully participating in economic, social, and political life.
Grant Description: The rates of HIV in low-income trans communities and trans communities of color are alarming. Social stigmatization, lack of education, discrimination, and lack of access to welcoming healthcare are just some of the factors responsible for the overrepresentation of trans people in survival sex and drug economies and which contribute to these communities’ disproportionately high rates of HIV infection. The Project’s Transgender Health Initiative provides crucial HIV prevention and care that reduces discrimination and increases access to gender-affirming health care for low-income trans communities through policy work, the provision of free direct legal services, service provider trainings, and community skills building.

Syringe Access Fund, Washington, DC
Renewal Grant: $2 million over two years
Grant Name: Syringe Access Fund Cycle Nine Grants
Grant Goal: To support needle exchange and syringe access services across the country
Organization Description: The Syringe Access Fund provides resources for direct services and policy advocacy in order to decrease HIV and hepatitis transmission among injection drug users and their sexual partners. Syringe access programs represent one of the most successful evidence-based approaches for reducing the spread of HIV. They also provide a doorway for highly marginalized people who use drugs to enter larger systems of health and social services that may otherwise feel overwhelming and discriminatory.
Grant Description: Beginning in 2004, with EJAF support, the Syringe Access Fund has provided small two-year grants to approximately 100 community-based projects every year to implement direct harm reduction services, policy work, and technical support to advance effective syringe access in the U.S. EJAF’s $2 million allocation ($1 million per year) supports the Syringe Access Fund’s ninth grant cycle by providing small two-year grants to approximately 50 organizations selected through the Fund’s review process.

Transgender Law Center, Oakland, CA
Renewal Grant: $300,000
Grant Name: Positively Trans (T+)
Grant Goal: To increase the visibility and participation of transgender people with HIV/AIDS in the creation of solutions for ending the epidemic
Organization Description: Launched in 2002 as a project of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the Transgender Law Center has grown to become the largest independent transgender advocacy organization in the U.S. Its advocacy and litigation work protects and advances the rights and opportunities of transgender people across the country, thereby benefiting thousands of individuals each year.
Grant Description: With an increase of 100,000, EJAF helps Transgender Law Center build momentum on work begun in 2014 and integrate their EJAF-supported HIV work into their broader rights work. In 2014, EJAF provided a first-time grant to the Center of $200,000. With that funding, the Transgender Law Project successfully created a National Advisory Board representative of trans communities throughout the United States, and worked to educate those advisory board members and, through a series of trainings, a total of 150 healthcare providers about pressing advocacy issues, including current federal policies that provide protections to trans people in healthcare settings. This year, with increased support from EJAF, the Transgender Law Center continues its work identifying systems gaps affecting trans people living with HIV and developing a response plan challenging social exclusion, stigma, economic marginalization, and unmet healthcare needs that contribute to high HIV prevalence and low treatment uptake and adherence among trans communities. Positively Trans is based on the belief that effective HIV responses for transgender people must include a combination of leadership development, community mobilization and strengthening, access to quality healthcare and services, and policy and legal advocacy directed at advancing the human rights of the community. With EJAF support, the Transgender Law Center enhances its work by opening a regional office in Altanta, GA, and launching a new, unique partnership with the organization Southerners On New Ground. Together these organizations implement an aggressive strategy to improve the health and rights of transgender people affected by HIV throughout the southern United States.

Treatment Action Group (TAG), New York, NY
Renewal Grant: $150,000
Grant Name: Research Towards a Cure and Ending the Epidemic
Grant Goal: To advocate for the adequate funding and continued progress on researching a cure for HIV/AIDS and for the successful implementation of New York state’s plan to end AIDS by 2020.
Organization Description:  Treatment Action Group (TAG) is an independent HIV research and policy think tank fighting for better treatments, a vaccine, and a cure for HIV. TAG’s programs focus on antiretroviral treatments, HIV basic science and immunology, vaccines and prevention technologies, hepatitis, and tuberculosis.
Grant Description: EJAF supports TAG for its advocacy work in New York State and for its national work on HIV cure research.  In New York State, TAG works with communities, activitists and government officials to ensure implementation of the New York State “Ending the Epidemic” initiative, which promises to scale up and fund comprehensive prevention, treatment, and supportive services. This work in New York has implications for progress in other jurisdictions around the country as policymakers and partners seek to explore and innovate with ending the epidemic plans in their different epidemic settings. TAG continues to expand its advocacy and education related to HIV cure research, because discovering, developing, and distributing worldwide a safe, effective cure for HIV infection remains our best hope for ending the HIV epidemic.

Women With A Vision, New Orleans, LA
Renewal Grant: $100,000
Grant Name: Black LGBTQ Action Coalition (BLAC)
Grant Goal: To organize Black LGBTQ people in Louisiana and Mississippi to respond to the AIDS crisis in those states
Organization Description: Incorporated in 1991, Women With A Vision is a community-based nonprofit, founded by a grassroots collective of Black women in response to the spread of HIV in communities of color. The mission of  Women With A Vision is to improve the lives of marginalized women, their families, and broader communities by addressing the social conditions that hinder their health and well-being. EJAF has provided previous support to this group through the Syringe Access Fund, as well as a direct grant in 2014.
Grant Description: Women With A Vision partners with Mississippi In Action to lead a regional project throughout Louisiana and Mississippi that provides increased opportunities for Black LGBTQ people to initiate and participate in advocacy. During the second project year, the Coalition is building on year-one success, including the completion of data collection on the needs of Black LGBTQ-identified people in the region. Utilizing contacts from its PrEP education project, the Coalition conducts peer educator and advocacy training focused on HIV awareness and linkage to care, voter education, HIV criminalization, and the Affordable Care Act. This project employs and adapts the community mobilization model Women With A Vision perfected during its campaign to combat the criminalization of sex work under Louisiana’s Crime Against Nature law, which resulted in a federal judicial ruling that ordered the removal of more than 700 women from the sex offender registry.

NEW GRANTS

Chapin Hall, Chicago, IL New Grant: $100,000
Grant Name: Voices of Youth Count
Grant Goals: To provide an unprecedented assessement of the crisis surrounding youth homelessness in the United States – a significant risk factor for HIV transmission – and to use this information to advocate for increased attention to this issue.
Organization Description: Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago is a research and policy center focused on improving the well-being of children and youth, families, and their communities. Its main efforts to achieve this goal are through policy research—by developing and testing new ideas, generating and analyzing information, and examining policies, programs, and practices across a wide range of service systems and organizations.
Grant Description:  Homelessness greatly increases the risk of young people contracting HIV through survival sex work, drug use, sexual violence, and lack of access to prevention methods, harm reduction, medical and mental health care, and social services.  With the exception of progressive urban centers including New York and San Francisco, there is a tremendous lack of the most basic and fundamental information about youth homelessness in the United States. The total number of homeless youth in this country remains largely unknown, and this lack of knowledge presents a significant barrier to determining the need for HIV prevention, treatment, and other services for this vulnerable population. A great deal of research and advocacy needs to be done to improve basic understanding of this problem. Voices for Youth Count is an unprecedented initiative that addresswa many unanswered questions: How many unaccompanied homeless and runaway youth are there in the U.S.? Who are they (including LGBTQ youth)? How do these youth get by? How are they doing, physically, mentally, emotionally, etc.? What factors are associated with how long and how often they are homeless or runaways? What services, including HIV services, do these youth use and what services are likely to work to get them to better life outcomes? What are the experiences of these youth related to local, state, or federal policies? A key aspect of this effort is to accurately portray the experiences of runaway and homeless young people and their needs, including LGBTQ youth, foster youth, juvenile justice youth, and minority youth, among others. Answering some of these most basic questions will greatly improve local and national efforts to deliver HIV prevention and treatment and broader health services to this population. To develop a roadmap to better outcomes, Voices of Youth Count conducts original research by engaging in the following activities: (1) in-depth qualitative interviews with runaway and homeless youth across the spectrum noted above; (2) a nationwide point-in-time count by choosing a representative sample of 25 sites including urban, suburban, and rural; (3) including questions related to youth running away from home in a national household survey; (4) analysis of existing data sets related to characteristics and experiences of runaway and homeless youth populations; (5) a systematic review of evidence on relevant prevention and intervention programs across disciplines (e.g., mental health, physical health, HIV, etc); and (6) conducting local, state and federal policy analyses and creating a set of policy and investment recommendations.

The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN New Grant: $23,500
Grant Name: Ryan White and HIV: The Power of Children and a Mother’s Story
Grant Goal:  To support the continuation of the landmark exhibit on the life story of Ryan White
Organization Description: Established in 1925, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is the largest children’s museum in the world with more than 1.2 million annual visitors. Creative and interactive learning experiences in the Museum’s exhibits are based on its collection of 120,000 artifacts and specimens, housed within its five-level, 472,900 square foot facility that includes 11 permanent galleries, two traveling exhibit spaces, a 350-seat children’s theater, a planetarium, a public library, and a preschool.
Grant Description: Ryan White’s bedroom has been recreated with his donated belongings in The Power of Children, an exhibit inspired by Ryan’s life at The Children’s Museum. His bedroom brings his story to life for children and families and serves as an intimate theater in which visitors from around the world can learn about and from his struggle against AIDS and intolerance. Jeanne White Ginder, Ryan’s Mother, visits the exhibit four times per year, speaking two times each day for three days per visit to continue Ryan’s mission of educating the world about HIV and those affected by it. In addition to giving a compelling account of her life with Ryan and his remarkable courage, Mrs. Ginder takes questions from those in attendance and also serves as a host in Ryan’s bedroom during portions of each day, speaking informally with children and families and using her scrapbooks as conversation starters. She also gives a presentation to middle school students at an annual theater event celebrating Ryan’s life.

Equality California Institute, Los Angeles, CA
New Grant: $200,000
Grant Name: HIV/AIDS Decriminalization and Prevention Project
Grant Goals: To support a statewide campaign to change the laws criminalizing alleged HIV transmission in California
Organization Description: Founded in 2004, Equality California is California’s premier statewide LGBT civil rights organization. It focuses on creating a fair and just society by advancing the health and well-being of LGBT Californians through direct healthcare service advocacy and education.
Grant Description: With this grant, Equality California Institute conducts a statewide campaign to educate its members, the LGBT community, and the broader public on both the need to modernize California’s HIV criminalization statutes and the health benefits of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). This campaign includes email and social media outreach to 800,000 members statewide, targeted media campaigns with both mainstream and LGBT outlets, and a community organizing field strategy. Both in regard to HIV criminalization and PrEP, this work includes issue education meetings with policymakers, peer-to-peer education sessions among legislators, developing briefing sheets and educational materials, and conducting message research through focus groups and field testing. The Institue also enhances the reach of HIV groups statewide by coordinating with LGBT organizations, the LGBT community, and progressive allies to educate policymakers and opinion leaders on both issues. This grant also supports the Institute’s leadership role on the California HIV Decriminalization Work Group.

Foundation for a National AIDS Monument, West Hollywood, CA
New Grant: $50,000
Grant Name: West Hollywood AIDS Monument Community Education Campaign
Grant Goals: To support the public education programming that will take place following the construction of the West Hollywood AIDS Monument
Organization Description: The Foundation for a National AIDS Monument was established in 2012 by a group of concerned individuals dedicated to creating an appropriate institutional representation of the HIV crisis in the Los Angeles area. The goal of the Foundation is to support the building of the AIDS Monument and the establishment of an extensive online platform that will serve to memorialize, honor, and inform visitors to the Monument site. With generous support and the donation of land from the city of West Hollywood, the plans include a prominent site for the Monument and local space for gatherings and public forums. Working in conjunction with the city, the Foundation conducted an extensive and detailed national search for the Monument artist, and in July 2014, Daniel Tobin was chosen to build it.
Grant Description: A one-time grant from the Elton John AIDS Foundation supports the development of the ongoing educational components surround the monument. The West Hollywood AIDS Monument Community Education Campaign implements a digital platform for conducting community education at the monument site on the history and ongoing crisis of the AIDS epidemic. This permanent installation memorializing those lost to HIV/AIDS and educating the public about the continuing crisis is a project EJAF proudly supports as an active member of the West Hollywood community.

Garden State Equality, Montclair, NJ
New Grant: $25,000
Grant Name: Transgender People, HIV Treatment Adherence, and Hormone Availability
Grant Goal: To provide support for state level advocacy efforts to improve transgender people’s adherence to HIV treatment
Organization Description: Garden State Equality is New Jersey’s leading civil rights organization focused on ensuring quality of life for the LGBT community through education, advocacy, service, and support. Since 2004, in collaboration with community partners, Garden State Equality has led successful efforts to ensure nondiscrimination for transgender and gender-nonconforming people in New Jersey, pass the most comprehensive anti-bullying law in the country, end sexual orientation and gender identity/expression change efforts in New Jersey (sometimes called conversion therapy), and bring marriage equality to the Garden State. In this post-marriage equality environment, Garden State Equality is currently working on campaigns to build and sustain safe environments for youth and to improve health services that meet LGBT community needs.
Grant Description:  In a 2010 research study, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the highest percentage of newly identified HIV-positive test results was among transgender people (2.1 percent of transgender people in the study were HIV-positive). Evidence suggests that the provision of hormone treatment can serve as an incentive for transgender patients to seek HIV testing and adhere to HIV treatment. EJAF’s grant funds Garden State Equality to work with Hyacinth AIDS Foundation and other advocacy organizations to educate policymakers, health insurance companies, and the broader public about the importance of health insurance coverage for transgender healthcare with the ultimate goal of ensuring that transgender healthcare, including hormones, psychotherapies, and surgeries, is fully covered by all private and public health insurance policies in New Jersey.

Immigration Equality, New York, NY New Grant: $50,000
Grant Name: Advocacy and Free Legal Services for LGBT and HIV-Positive Immigrants Fleeing Persecution
Grant Goal: To provide high quality legal services to people with HIV caught up in the U.S. immigration system
Organization Description: Established in 1994, Immigration Equality is the nation’s largest legal service provider and advocacy organization for LGBT and HIV-positive immigrants. Each year, Immigration Equality responds to over 4,000 calls, emails, online requests, and letters from vulnerable LGBT and HIV-positive people forced to flee persecution. Immigration Equality regularly wins asylum for LGBT and HIV-positive immigrants and stops their deportation from the U.S. At the same time, it works to change policies that hurt this community and advance those that are potentially lifesaving.
Grant Description: This grant enables Immigration Equality to continue representing HIV-positive clients, who constitute 22% of its caseload (approximately 114 cases), and clients who are at high risk of contracting HIV (approximately 250 cases). In 2016, the organization’s multi-lingual legal team is anticipated to respond to more than 5,000 calls for help. Most new asylum cases (80%) are assigned to a firm in their Pro Bono Network, and Immigration Equality trains, supports, and supervises the participating attorneys. In addition, its in-house legal team handles detention and deportation cases that tend to be more time-consuming and require specific expertise in the nuances of immigration law.

New Jersey AIDS Partnership, Morristown, NJ
New Grant: $100,000
Grant Name: The New Jersey PrEP Peers Initiative
Grant Goal:  To improve access to PreP medication for young gay men in New Jersey
Organization Description: The New Jersey AIDS Partnership is a collaborative effort of private and corporate foundation leaders, public health officials, service providers, people living with HIV, and other community leaders who believe that HIV is fought most effectively at the community level. The New Jersey AIDS Partnership is the only charitable giving fund in New Jersey that is solely committed to ending the HIV epidemic.
Grant Description: The New Jersey PrEP Peers Initiative funds 3-4 pilot projects targeting high-risk gay and bisexual men and transgender women. The initiative’s primary goals for the target population are to: (1) ensure community understanding of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP); (2) increase uptake of PrEP where appropriate; (3) address barriers to uptake and adherence of PrEP through linkage to essential supportive services, health insurance enrollment, engagement in health care, reduced stigma and discrimination associated with PrEP use, and mistrust of healthcare professionals; (4) improve adherence to safer sex practices, regular HIV and STD testing, and engagement in health care; (5) reduce new HIV infections; (6) increase linkage to care for newly HIV-positive people; and (7) identify best practices for integrating peers into New Jersey’s efforts to ensure “full access to comprehensive PrEP services” in alignment with the updated goals of the 2020 National HIV/AIDS Strategy.

New York City AIDS Memorial, New York, NY
New Grant: $50,000
Grant Name: New York City AIDS Memorial – Education and Cultural Programming
Grant Goals: To support public education that will follow the unveiling of the memorial
Organization Description: Founded in 2011, the mission of the New York City AIDS Memorial is to commemorate the ongoing history of the HIV epidemic through the construction of a permanent memorial. As a result of a sustained community-led advocacy effort, the New York City Council designated a site for an AIDS Memorial as the primary feature of a new park across from the former St. Vincent’s Hospital. The Memorial will provide a strong visual presence as the symbolic gateway to the park and be lit at night. Having spent the last several years laying the groundwork for the physical memorial—and raising nearly $5.5 million, thanks in part to the generosity of the Elton John AIDS Foundation—the NYC AIDS Memorial is currently under construction. The Memorial Committee is now turning its attention to developing educational and cultural programming and creating partnerships with other institutions to leverage the site as a teaching space about the ongoing crisis and as a platform for collecting and archiving historical content about the epidemic.
Grant Description: EJAF was one of the originating funders of the memorial’s conception and construction with a grant in 2012. Fellow funders BroadwayCares and the MAC AIDS Fund have provided additional support for the project’s completion. This EJAF grant supports the NYC AIDS Memorial’s Education and Programming Committee, which is led by Board members Eric Sawyer, the Civil Society Partnership Advisor at UNAIDS, and Kendall Thomas, the Nash Professor of Law and co-founder and director of the Center for the Study of Law and Culture at Columbia University. The purpose of this EJAF-funded work is to put the AIDS Memorial in its local context, add history and meaning to the site, engage people to think about the underlying issues within the ongoing epidemic, and begin to gather historical content to preserve for future generations. In tandem with these educational goals, world-renowned visual artist Jenny Holzer has been commissioned to design a text installation for the surface of the AIDS Memorial that includes lines from Walt Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself,” a poem of strength and joy. Ms. Holzer is known for her text-based artworks created for public spaces, including at 7 World Trade Center.

The Williams Institute, Los Angeles, CA New Grant: $75,000
Grant Name: HIV Criminalization: Translating Data into Community Action
Grant Goals: To conduct original research into the true scope of the effects of HIV criminalization laws in California
Organization Description: The Williams Institute is a research institute located at UCLA School of Law dedicated to conducting rigorous, independent research on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy.  The Williams Institute and two other organizations, the Disability Rights Legal Center and the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s AIDS Legal Services Project, are collaborating on a project called the L.A. HIV Law and Policy Project to provide information, referrals, legal representation, and legal education to people living with HIV, medical staff, and social service providers. In just two years, the L.A. HIV Law and Policy Project has reached over 3,400 individuals. Its services have been informed by an evidence base established by the Williams Institute’s most recent legal needs assessment, evaluating the legal needs of almost 400 low-income people living with HIV in Los Angeles County.
Grant Description: With this grant, the Williams Institute analyzes California criminal offense data on 850 individuals who have been subjected to HIV criminalization laws, thereby providing unique evidence of the real-world impact of these laws and identifying trends on outcomes and sentencing. The L.A. HIV Law and Policy Project designs strategies for community engagement informed by these data. Activities include know-your-rights workshops targeting specific communities more likely to face prosecution under these laws. The Project leverages this effort through its participation with Californians for HIV Criminalization Reform, a statewide group dedicated to addressing this matter. Project-designed workshops utilize pre- and post-assessments administered to outreach participants. These assessments, which specifically measure comprehension of the law and attitudes and beliefs regarding HIV criminalization, help inform strategies for messaging about this issue.