Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS will extend invitations to apply for the four rounds of our National Grants Programs in 2020 only to those organizations that were awarded grants previously. At this time we are unable to extend a 2020 grant application to any organization that has not received a grant 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 2019 must contact 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 to previous grantees on November 15, 2019. The deadline will be December 13, 2019. The grants committee will meet to review proposals in January 2020 and awards will be announced in February 2020.
This grant round targets direct food services that have an immediate impact on the people we seek to help. Food pantries, meal delivery organizations, congregate meal programs and more, large and small, whether working as a stand-alone agency or a program or service of a separate or large nonprofit or agency are included. Nothing embodies this round more than ensuring a person who is ill has sufficient and nutritious food, which is essential to the efficacy of medical treatments and basic quality of life. There are two categories in this round: one for meal providers serving people living with HIV/AIDS and other serious and illnesses and conditions; the second for those only serving people living with HIV/AIDS.
In 2019, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS awarded $2,143,000 to 125 food service providers in 37 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., in this grant round.
Nationally Recognized Service and Public Policy Grants
Applications for this grant round will be mailed to previous grantees on February 7, 2020. The deadline will be March 2, 2020. The grants committee will meet to review proposals in March 2020 and awards will be announced in April 2020.
This round provides funds to organizations across the country that do the advocacy and public policy work that affects organizations at a local or national level to provide direct services funded in other grant categories. The leading AIDS service organizations and LGBT health clinics operating in major metropolitan areas are also included. Organizations must be recognized as leaders making a significant impact on a variety of issues of national importance or whose work impacts service delivery, public policy and/or access to treatment options. By invitation only
In 2019, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS awarded $1,157,000 to 49 agencies in this grant round.
Theatre and Entertainment Industry Social Service Agency Grants
Applications for this grant round will be mailed to previous grantees on March 20, 2020. The deadline will be April 22, 2020. The grants committee will meet to review proposals in May 2020 and awards will be announced in June 2019.
This grant round provides funds to organizations in New York City that provide social services to members of the theatrical community, working most often in collaboration with The Actors Fund. By invitation only.
In 2019, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS awarded $189,500 to 12 organizations in this limited grant round.
National Grants for Direct Services, Emergency Assistance Programs, Substance Abuse and Harm Reduction Services, Quality of Life Programs
Applications for this grant round will be mailed to previous grantees on April 17, 2020. The deadline will be May 22, 2020. The grants committee will meet to review proposals in June 2020 and awards will be announced by August 2020, with all award checks sent before September 2020.
Fundable services in the Direct Services category include, but are not limited, to case management expenses; client transportation costs; gasoline and care of vehicles that transport clients to the doctor, social service appointments and recovery meetings; personal care items and clothing; supportive housing services and maintenance; job training and education. Any direct service will be considered as long as a rationale is provided on how it impacts the well-being of the client, especially those that assist in ensuring that clients can be adherent to medical regimens.
Fundable services in the Emergency Assistance Programs category include emergency or short term support for utilities, telephone bills, rent, vouchers for food, transportation or short-term health insurance premium support.
Funding services in the Substance Abuse and Harm Reduction Services category include projects focusing on injection drug users and others addicted who are HIV-infected or at significant risk for HIV infection. Examples of fundable services include peer-based support groups and interventions, community outreach and syringe exchange programs.
Fundable services in the Quality of Life Programs category include companion animal and animal rescue support, support for community outreach, back-to-school programs, art and education projects to the underserved, summer camps and recreational programs for children living with HIV/AIDS and their families, entertainment brought to community centers and supportive housing programs.
In 2019, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS awarded $2,305,500 to 304 social service agencies across the country in this grant round.
$807,000 awarded to 108 providers in the Direct Services
$625,000 awarded to 82 programs in the Emergency Assistant
$572,500 awarded to 55 Harm Reduction organizations and programs
$300,500 awarded to 59 Quality of Life agencies
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.
