FCAA and Funders for LGBTQ Issues Collaborative Funder-Only Telebriefing:

This funders' briefing examined the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) as an entry point to understanding and responding to the needs of communities most profoundly affected by HIV and AIDS: Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM) - particularly MSM of color -- who constitute over half of new US infections each year, African Americans who represent 46% of People Living with HIV/ AIDS (PLWHA) in the US, and transgender people who by some accounts face an HIV infection rate four times the national average.

Convened in July 2011 - one year after the launch of the NHAS (which calls for an emphasis on communities taking the hardest hit), and one year before the first International AIDS Conference scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C. in the summer of 2012, the briefing addressed, among other things:

What is the link between LGBTQ issues and HIV/AIDS?

How can funders support the structural changes necessary to address HIV/AIDS and attendant drivers (e.g., barriers to housing and care, employment discrimination, criminalization), specifically with regard to communities experiencing the hardest impact?

Speakers included:
-Ernest Hopkins, Director of Legislative Affairs, San Francisco AIDS Foundation
-Cecilia Chung, Commissioner, San Francisco Human Rights Commission
-Ron Simmons, Executive Director, Us Helping Us

Moderated by:
-Terry McGovern, Senior Program Officer, Ford Foundation