New Programming Opportunities at FCAA

Last week the FCAA Board of Directors approved a new committee structure to help engage our members in program planning. We’ll be reaching out shortly with more info on how to get involved, but, in the interim, here is just one of the new and exciting opportunities for FCAA members:

Do you support domestic AIDS advocacy initiatives – or want to know how to start? In response to the overwhelming consensus of the participants of FCAA’s first annual gathering (September 2009) that domestic advocacy was an issue in need of critical attention from funders, FCAA convened the first meeting of the Domestic Advocacy Working Group (DAWG) on March 10^th to discuss the current state of domestic HIV/AIDS advocacy, and begin to explore FCAA’s role in assisting funders in better understanding the issues, identifying urgent gaps, sharing best practices, developing collaborative approaches, and maximizing available resources for the work.

Here is just a hint of what was identified in the meeting:

Funding Priorities

• Local and regional capacity building, grassroots advocacy.
• Media, communications & message development
• Administrative and legislative advocacy (e.g. the development/roll out of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy).
• Leadership development.
• Addressing issues such as harm reduction, aging, housing, comprehensive healthcare reform and implications for PLWHAs.

• Developing a funders toolkit for advocacy and platforms for real-time information/best practice sharing on urgent advocacy issues.
• Identifying and highlighting success stories to demonstrate the importance of funding advocacy and ROI potential.
• Deepen data on advocacy collected through FCAA’s resource tracking publication.