BC/EFA Annual Report 2004 - Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS

BROADWAY CARES/EQUITY FIGHTS AIDS
NATIONAL GRANTS
PROGRAM
Active since 1987, BC/EFA’s National Grants Program has become one of the largest of its kind in the
United States. A report published by Funders Concerned About AIDS showed that BC/EFA ranked sixth in the nation in terms of
grant dollars disbursed for HIV/AIDS, just behind The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and The Ford Foundation, and ahead
of such longstanding philanthropic powerhouses as the Rockefeller Foundation, The New York Community Trust, and the
California Endowment, among others. This achievement is a result of the rapid growth in our fundraising, and as a result, in our
grant-making, over the past several years.
From the outset, BC/EFA’s grants program has been fast, simple, and efficient. A concise two-page application allows us to make
disbursements twice a year to hundreds of community-based organizations, an unusual feature among top AIDS grant-makers, and
one that we have learned over the years is meaningful to relatively small organizations. The majority of these grassroots organizations
operate on bare-bones budgets, but still manage to have significant impact on their own communities.
The National Grants Program for Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) at BC/EFA attempts to address the ongoing and
unmet needs of these AIDS and family service organizations. Because AIDS is not just a single disease, but a combination of epidemics
exacerbated by discrimination and poverty, our grants in this category are geared to those organizations that are providing case
management, food, housing, transportation, emergency financial assistance, emotional support, and non-reimbursable and
emergency medical expenses.
In 2004, BC/EFA’s National Grants Committee awarded grants totaling $3,235,000 to over 564 AIDS and family service
organizations in 49 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico. (See the list of agencies by city and state, beginning on page 16).
In 2002, a subset of the National Grants Program, called simply National Grants II, was created to allow BC/EFA to support,
at a higher level, organizations serving large metropolitan areas or doing advocacy work that impacts the entire network of AIDS
service providers, many of which have received financial support through BC/EFA’s longtime grants program for more than a decade.
In 2004, BC/EFA awarded an additional $340,000 to 20 nationally recognized AIDS service and advocacy organizations
through National Grants II.
national grants program
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