Organizations Offer Support to People Without Access to Resources
During these increasingly troubling times when access to health care continues to be threatened, individuals with HIV, AIDS and other life-threatening illnesses increasingly are turning to social service organizations for vital assistance. When those in need live in remote areas, accessing these crucial resources becomes even more difficult.
In rural Alabama, devastating stigmatization and a lack of HIV education creates significant isolation for HIV-positive residents.
“It’s one of those things people don’t want to talk about,” said Lanita Kharel, executive director of AIDS Alabama South. “They simply don’t want to discuss the disease, especially in our conservative communities. There’s a lot of denial about HIV.”
AIDS Alabama South, which received a $12,500 grant from Broadway Cares in 2017, serves a severely underrepresented community of 12 counties across 12,545 square miles. The organization works to lessen the disease’s stigma in the region, as well as reverse the effects of poor, or nonexistent, sex education.
“One of the things that we advocate for very strongly is for comprehensive sex education programs at public schools,” Kharel said. “It does not exist in the state of Alabama. We talk about abstinence, but people are not being abstinent. The proof is in the statistics around sexually transmitted diseases in Mobile and around the new cases of HIV, and the people who are becoming infected.”
In the region, there are 2,623 confirmed individuals living with HIV and AIDS, with untold more unaware of their status. Without AIDS Alabama South, these people would not have access to essential, life-sustaining services.
AIDS Alabama South is one of the 461 organizations receiving grants from Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS in 2017. Broadway Cares awarded a record $6,749,522 to AIDS and family service organizations in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, DC.
In addition to giving hope and opportunity to people in major metropolitan areas, Broadway Cares supports those living far from other resources. The stigma and marginalization seen by AIDS Alabama South are not unique to the south. Limited access to lifesaving medicine and necessities are common challenges from Alabama to Alaska.
For Kaylee and her son, Dawson, who live in rural Alaska, obtaining everything from necessary medication to everyday items is a challenge. “It’s not just the HIV medicine,” Kaylee explains. “It’s getting transportation to cities for checkups and routine surgeries. It’s having food on the table for my son. When you live far from everything, it gets so much harder.”
Recognizing the unique challenges of Kaylee and other Alaska residents living in isolated regions, Alaskan AIDS Assistance Association in Anchorage assists clients across 91 percent of a state that’s twice as large as Texas. The association offers a full range of services that help even the most secluded of Alaskans, including a telephone hotline, financial assistance, providing vital supplies to local organizations and paying for medical visits to Anchorage or Juneau.
“After helping me get to Anchorage for a routine medical procedure, my son and I returned home to find a backpack full of school supplies and four boxes of healthy food while I recover,” Kaylee said.
Alaskan AIDS Assistance Association’s 2017 grant of $7,500 from Broadway Cares was part of this summer’s largest grant round, which awarded more than $2.1 million to 302 organizations. This round’s funding covers direct services and case management, supportive housing programs, emergency financial assistance, harm reduction programs and quality of life services.
Earlier in 2017, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS awarded $1.9 million to 117 organizations in 38 states for food service and meal delivery programs. Helping ensure the supply of nutritious meals to those in need remains a high priority for Broadway Cares because healthy meals are an essential part of a lifesaving regimen.
In March, $880,000 was awarded to 42 nationally recognized AIDS service and advocacy agencies. The work of these agencies directly impacts the hundreds of service providers Broadway Cares funds.
The stigma that still permeates all communities prevents some people from getting the vital help they need to thrive. For Jeff in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, his fear of confronting his disease made his outlook on life bleak.
“I should have gotten help years ago, but pride gets in the way,” Jeff said. “You’d rather take care of yourself than ask for help. By the time I was referred to North Idaho AIDS Coalition, I was on my death bed. I’d given up.”
While Idaho’s capital city of Boise has more resources for people with HIV and AIDS, less populated north Idaho – some 450 miles away – lacks this fundamental support. North Idaho AIDS Coalition helps people within 19,878 square miles that would otherwise not receive the help they so desperately need. For Jeff, that meant the medicine that kept him alive.
“I’ve been good for a year and a half now, I’ve taken my medication,” Jeff said. “I sit there and I give thanks for the people who donate, because I know they don’t have to and out of the goodness in their heart they do it. I really appreciate their help in doing that.”
Thanks to area organizations fueled by Broadway Cares’ grants, individuals across the country, like Kaylee and Jeff and hundreds of thousands of others, are able to receive the basic care they deserve, regardless of how remote the region or heavy the stigma.
“I’m not sure where I’d be today without that assistance,” Kaylee said. “I am so thankful people care enough to help me.”
National Grants By Fiscal Year
2018
National Grants
| Food Service and Meal Delivery Programs |
$2,015,000 |
| Nationally Recognized AIDS Service and Advocacy Organizations |
$1,150,000 |
| Local AIDS Service Organizations |
$2,227,500 |
| Theatre Social Service Organizations |
$152,500 |
| Hurricane Relief Grants to Hispanic Federation |
$350,000 |
| Research, Special One-time Grants and Shared Suppor |
$865,550 |
| Supplemental Emergency Grants |
$488,191 |
| Physician Volunteers for the Arts |
$85,000 |
| Total: $7,333,741 |
2017
National Grants
| Food Service and Meal Delivery Programs |
$1,915,000 |
| Nationally Recognized AIDS Service and Advocacy Organizations |
$880,000 |
| Local AIDS Service Organizations |
$2,133,500 |
| Supplemental Emergency Grants |
$462,404 |
| Theatre Community Service Organizations, Research Grants, Special One-time and Share Support |
$858,618 |
| Hurricane Relief |
$425,000 |
| Physician Volunteers for the Arts |
$75,000 |
| Total: $6,749,522 |
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
Food Service and Meal Delivery Programs
115 Organizations in 33 States |
$1,149.000
|
Local Grants
351 Organizations in 42 States:
Housing Programs, Health Clinics, Case Management, Harm Reduction Programs |
$2,568,000
|
National and Advocacy Organizations
34 Organizations in 12 States |
$600,000
|
| IAVI (International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) |
$150,000
|
|
Learn More about National Grants
✛ 2019 Grant Rounds
Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS will extend invitations to apply for the four rounds of our National Grants Programs in 2019 only to those organizations that were awarded grants previously. At this time we are unable to extend invitations to apply to any organizations that have not received grants from Broadway Cares in the past.
Organizations that received a grant in 2019 will automatically be sent the application materials when they become available. Any organization that received a grant in the past but not in 2018 must request an application by contacting Brian O’Donnell at odonnell@broadwaycares.org or 212.840.0770, ext. 226.
Food Service and Meal Delivery Grants
Applications for this grant round will be mailed out to previous grantees on November 16, 2018. The deadline will be December 14, 2018. The grants committee will meet to review proposals in January 2019 and awards will be announced in February 2019.
Nationally Recognized Service and Public Policy Grants
By invitation only. Applications for this grant round will be mailed out to previous grantees on February 8, 2019. The deadline will be March 1, 2019. The grants committee will meet to review proposals in March 2019 and awards will be announced in April 2019.
Theatre and Entertainment Industry Social Service Agency Grants
By invitation only. Applications for this grant round will be mailed out to previous grantees on March 22, 2019. The deadline will be April 26, 2019. The grants committee will meet to review proposals in May 2019 and awards will be announced in June 2019.
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 19, 2019. The deadline will be May 24, 2019. The grants committee will meet to review proposals in June 2018 and awards will be announced by August 2019, with all award checks sent before September 2019.
✛ History
Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is one of the nation’s largest HIV/AIDS-related grant-making foundations, granting more than $10 million annually and more than $155 million dollars since 1988.
Equity Fights AIDS and Broadway Cares were founded as separate AIDS-related fundraising organizations in 1988. Since their merger in May of 1992, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS has had an unparalleled history of fundraising and grant-making in response to the AIDS epidemic.
BC/EFA’s ability to keep pace with the epidemic by continuing to raise millions of dollars year after year is a testament to the ingenuity, resourcefulness and generosity of the American theatre community. More significantly, it is also a testament to the lasting impact the AIDS epidemic has had on the artists and professionals in the theater, dance and classical music industries. It is through their efforts that the majority of this fundraising is achieved.
Funding support has been divided between support for The Actors Fund, the employee assistance program of the entertainment industry, and BC/EFA’s National Grants Program, which assists hundreds of community-based organizations that provide services for people with AIDS and their families at a grassroots community level nationwide.
BC/EFA’s National Grants Program
The ongoing funding support provided through the National Grants Program is an essential component of BC/EFA’s commitment, specifically to people with AIDS outside of the entertainment industry and the organizations that serve them.
BC/EFA’s 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 BC/EFA’s 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 made by BC/EFA 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, BC/EFA 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, BC/EFA 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.
BC/EFA 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.
One Grant Round Per Year Becomes Three
Initially BC/EFA’s 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, BC/EFA 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 BC/EFA 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.
BC/EFA 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 of 2006, BC/EFA determined 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 diseases such as cancer, multiple sclerosis and chronic hepatitis 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, BC/EFA 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.
Past Giving
Broadway Cares was created in 1988 specifically to raise funds within the theatre 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 refigured to include both AIDS service providers and those in the theatre community active in raising funds for BC/EFA. Since its founding in 1988, BC/EFA has distributed more than $82 million through our National Grants Program.
✛ National Grantees by State
Please use the drop-down box below to view all the agencies BC/EFA funded in Fiscal Year 2017 by state.
✛ 2017 National Grantees Map
