30 years of AIDS – Looking back at the Philanthropic Response
Authored by: Sarah Hamilton
The 30th anniversary of AIDS also creates an important opportunity for the FCAA community to stop and reflect on the important role of philanthropy has played in supporting and advancing the global response to HIV/AIDS. Following the first reported case of AIDS, philanthropy was still struggling to respond to the epidemic; most funding for early AIDS efforts came from individuals, and was mostly informal and highly personal. In 1987 FCAA was founded by a group of grantmakers (download the timeline and history of the FCAA Board of Directors 
) dedicated to bringing philanthropic attention to the AIDS crisis and to building the field of AIDS-related philanthropy. In 2003 FCAA published HIV/AIDS Philanthropy: History and Current Parameters 1981-2000 to provide a brief overview and history of U.S.-based HIV/AIDS philanthropy.
We recommend you read this report to see how far we’ve come, from just over $200,000 in grants in 1983 to disbursing $585 million to HIV/AIDS in 2009. In the interim, here are a few highlights:
- Foundation support for HIV/AIDS began to flow in 1983, with total support amounting to $216,000 awarded through five grants;
- These first grants were awarded by the New York Community Trust, the San Francisco Foundation, the United Hospital Fund, the Charles A. Dana Foundation, and the Joint Foundation Support.
- The insurance and pharmaceutical industries comprised the first consistent corporate philanthropic involvement in HIV/AIDS. The same is still true: pharmaceutical companies represented five of the top 10 HIV/AIDS funders (those giving $300,000 and above) in 2009.
- Members of the entertainment and design industries also formed groups to respond. Two such groups are still top funders today: Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and DIFFA.
- Several foundations were also created to exclusively support research and care on HIV/AIDS, such as amfAR, founded in 1985.
- Initial foundation and corporate support for AIDS was concentrated in major U.S. and European cities where funders were based and where the epidemic was most visible. Early funding was directed to AIDS services, research, and legal efforts related to stigma and discrimination.
- In 1986 the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJ) was one of the first private foundations to include AIDS programs in their annual budget, granting $17.2 million dollars in 1986. The Ford Foundation began funding HIV/AIDS in 1987, followed soon after by major efforts from the Aaron Diamond Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others. Sadly, only RWJ and the Ford Foundation – who closed their Global HIV/AIDS Initiative in 2010 – remain on the top HIV/AIDS funders list as of 2009.
- The National AIDS Fund (NAF) was created in 1988 as a national funding pool (originally known as the National Community AIDS Partnership). NAF represented the first national-local partnership in which local foundations, United Ways, and corporations were encouraged to work in partnership with foundations around local HIV/AIDS grantmaking. Now known as AIDS United, the organization is one of the top 15 HIV/AIDS funders, supporting more than 400 grassroots HIV/AIDS organizations across the country.
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