Assist Grantees in Navigating Sea Changes in the Field

The introduction of the NHAS comes at a time when many grantees are dealing with the impact of a general reduction in AIDS funding, a trend toward mainstreaming AIDS services, changing funding priorities for both private funders and government, the fallout from the global economic crisis and ever-changing advancements in prevention and treatment.

Opportunities

Funders can help grantees in the following ways:

• Fund IT support necessary for harmonizing data collection, sharing and distribution with Federal mandates
• Support strategic planning and program evaluation processes so grantees can align with the NHAS in the most appropriate way
• Assist in developing business plans for social enterprise ventures with in-kind support
• Provide seed money for social enterprise start-ups
• Support mission expansion, strategic alliances or mergers tied to scaled up or more highly coordinated service provision
• Support assessments of community need so that the highest risk populations are accurately identified

Challenges

• Aligning on-the-ground data collection with mandates being established on the Federal level can entail significant costs for hardware, software and staff trainings
• Mergers, mission expansion and social enterprise venture require significant upfront investments of time and money in planning, piloting and start-up expenses
• The cost of initiating a start-up for-profit venture may be beyond the capacity of a single funder and require multiple financial partners 
• The development of a solid business plan and the gathering of financial partners will, in itself, cost time and money