people living with HIV live in the world’s poorest

people living with HIV live in the world’s poorest
countries.39 40 The growing devastation AIDS is creating in many developing countries
is of such a scale that almost any private funder in such countries must at least take note
of the impact, regardless of its stated funding priorities and strategies.
In the 1980s, international HIV/AIDS grants were awarded by only a few U.S.-based
foundations, including sustained support from three private foundations -- the Ford
Foundation, the Public Welfare Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.41 Today,
international HIV/AIDS funding is still generally supported by these large, established
foundations, but many smaller foundations have also become involved as the situation
has taken on the dimensions of a true global catastrophe. A most notable addition to
the global AIDS funding arena has been the entry of the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation. However, even with substantial Gates Foundation funding, international
HIV/AIDS grantmaking from the U.S. still accounts for only 16.3% of overall US-based
HIV/AIDS philanthropy.42
Internationally, in 2001, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan called for the
creation of a Global Fund to address AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (GFATM) to
collect and distribute more than $10 billion annually (See Appendix VII for an overview
materials on GFATM). Secretary General Annan devoted almost all of an
unprecedented keynote address at the 2001 Council on Foundations annual conference
to the need for a more powerful multi-sectoral response, including a larger role for U.S.
grantmakers.43 The large amounts of funding being allocated by the Gates Foundation
and raised and now disbursed by the Global Fund have captured the attention and
imagination of many U.S.-based foundations, generating new dialogue and energy
about funding to combat HIV/AIDS internationally.
FCAA Efforts
In 1998, in response to signs of a softening in philanthropic support for HIV/AIDS,
FCAA hired the Gallup Organization to conduct a detailed survey of HIV/AIDS
grantmakers. The purpose of this effort was to assess past and present grantmaker
interest in and funding levels for HIV/AIDS programs and discern possible future trends.
The results from this survey were compiled into a report called Philanthropy and AIDS:
Assessing the Past, Shaping the Future. 44 The report indicated an overall reduction in
HIV/AIDS grantmaking from U.S. foundations and corporations, but raised many new
questions about the reasons for the decline and possible ways for FCAA and other
leaders in the field to reverse it. The survey results represented a “wake-up call” to the
field regarding the growing need for further strategic philanthropy on AIDS. The report