Food Service and Meal Delivery Grants

Applications for this grant round will be mailed out to previous grantees on November 15, 2024. The deadline will be December 13, 2024. The grants committee will meet to review proposals in January 2025 and awards will be announced in February 2025.

Nationally Recognized Service and Public Policy Grants

By invitation only. Applications for this grant round will be mailed out to previous grantees on February 14, 2025. The deadline will be March 14, 2025. The awards will be announced in April 2025.

National Grants for Emergency Assistance Programs, Direct Services, Substance Abuse and Harm Reduction Services, Quality of Life Programs

Applications for this grant round will be mailed out to previous grantees on April 11, 2025. The deadline will be May 9, 2025. The awards will be announced in June 2025.

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS will extend invitations to apply for our National Grants Programs in 2025 only to those organizations receiving grants previously.

Organizations that received a grant in 2024 will automatically be sent the application materials as they become available. Any organization that received a grant in the past but not in 2024 should contact Brian O’Donnell at odonnell@broadwaycares.org.

 

 
Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the philanthropic heart of Broadway, is one of the nation’s largest HIV/AIDS-related grant-making organizations.

The ongoing funding support provided through Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS’ National Grants Program is an essential component of our commitment, specifically to people with AIDS outside of the entertainment industry and the organizations that serve them.

Our National Grants Program was conceptualized with two objectives. The first was to responsibly grant funds as quickly as possible so that organizations responding to the AIDS crisis would be able to address the constant state of emergency that people with AIDS faced during the early days of the epidemic.

The second was to spread resources to as many organizations throughout the country as possible in order to create an awareness of HIV/AIDS among service providers and to use relatively modest grants to leverage greater resources to address the needs of all communities affected by HIV/AIDS.

The HIV epidemic has grown and intensified beyond the gay community, particularly in communities of color, with a high incidence among women and their children, as well as in persons with substance abuse histories. HIV has always reinforced or created economic hardship. Therefore, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS saw a need to focus its National Grants Program on direct services such as food programs, support programs for clothing and personal hygiene items and emergency assistance programs to avoid evictions or loss of health insurance.

At the same time, Broadway Cares was compelled to develop funding options that supported the integrity of families and the quality of life of people living with AIDS. Funding became available for family support, including bereavement support, burials for family members, summer camps, recreational and cultural outings and alternative therapies.

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS also demonstrated its leadership by being among the first to fund needle exchange programs, long before most other funders supported these programs, and even before New York State decriminalized syringe possession.

1988 -1990s

In 1988 Broadway Cares was created specifically to raise funds within the theater community to be distributed through grants to AIDS service organizations in New York City and across the country. During the four years from 1988 through the merger of Broadway Cares with Equity Fights AIDS in May 1992, $1,067,000 was granted to 85 AIDS service organizations by a committee made up entirely of theatrical professionals. Following the 1992 merger and through 1996, this same committee granted an additional $4,740,000.

In 1996, the National Grants Committee was restructured to include both AIDS service providers and those in the theater community active in raising funds for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

2000 – 2010s – One Grant Round Per Year Becomes Three

Initially Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS’ National Grants Program committee met once a year to award grants to AIDS service organizations in six categories: Food Services; Emergency Assistance; Direct Services; One-Time Expense; Substance Abuse and Harm Reduction Services; and Quality of Life Programs.

In March 2002, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS initiated a second grant round for a small subset of Nationally Recognized AIDS Service Organizations, as well as a number of organizations doing advocacy and public policy work that affects the hundreds of service providers Broadway Cares funds. These are organizations whose mission as providers of HIV/AIDS services and/or advocacy is nationally recognized as pivotal within a large geographic area or an area with a particularly high concentration of those living with HIV/AIDS.

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS serves as a grant-making conduit between Broadway audiences (groups that immediately respond to the fundraising appeals made by entertainment professionals) and people living with HIV/AIDS. Consistent with this ideal, our grant-making targets direct services. Nothing embodies this concept more than ensuring a person who is sick has a decent meal. In January 2006, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS decided to make the Food Service Organizations category its own separate grant round affording the opportunity for a larger award than was available in the overall national grant round awarded every spring.

We heard from both the entertainment community and our donors who said that while they are still deeply concerned about HIV/AIDS, they were also worried about the ability of people homebound with other life-threatening illnesses to receive regularly delivered meals. In the last two years, a number of the largest meal delivery programs have tried expanding their services to include those with other debilitating illnesses. Because we believe that this expansion of services is a smart, strategic plan, beginning in January 2006, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS offered those food service and meal delivery programs with expanded missions the opportunity to receive larger grants of up to $35,000. This not only offers assistance to more people in need, but in doing so encourages increased funding opportunities in a very difficult fundraising climate, thereby ensuring that delivered meals will continue to be provided to people with AIDS for the foreseeable future.

2020 – today

In March 2020, theaters on Broadway and across the country were darkened because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS’ supporters shined brightly, fueling an extraordinary $3,473,000 million in grants to 381 social services agencies across the country during fiscal year 2020.

In 2021, $4.98 million in grants from Broadway Cares’ National Grants Programs was provided to 424 social and medical service agencies in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. These agencies were supported in three rounds: $2,452,500 in grants to 131 food service and meal delivery programs in January; $925,000 to 41 nationally recognized AIDS service and advocacy organizations in March; and $1,604,000 to 252 direct service programs in June.

That National Grants support was in addition to $7.7 million donated to the Entertainment Community Fund (formerly The Actors Fund), which provides a safety net of social services for everyone in entertainment and the performing arts. Overall, Broadway Cares provided $13,024,000 in grants during fiscal year 2021.

“Even with theaters closed and in-person events canceled, our fundraising work continued at remarkable levels thanks to our generous donors and the ingenuity and compassion of theater artists,” Broadway Cares Executive Director Tom Viola said”

In 2024, Broadway Cares awarded $6,217,500 to 466 social service agencies in three rounds: $2,8300,000 in grants to 146 food service and meal delivery programs in January; $985,000 to 44 nationally recognized AIDS service and advocacy organizations in March; and $2,005,000 to 256 direct service programs in June. Separately, 20 theater social service organizations were awarded $397,500.

History of National Grants