Deadline: 27-Jun-22
The ViiV Healthcare is seeking applications for the Risk to Reasons Initiative under the theme Reframing and Refocusing HIV Prevention and Care for Black Women.
ViiV Healthcare’s Risk to Reasons initiative sets out to develop new messages, new messengers and new methods to increase awareness and action around HIV prevention for Black women of cis and trans experience. Guided by advocates across the country, the initiative creates content, funds community action and connects advocates across the country to change the impact of HIV in Black communities and get more Black women connected to prevention and care.
Risk to Reasons is shaped and steered by the Black Women’s Working Group to Reframe Risk, a group of Black women living with and working in HIV convened by ViiV Healthcare who collaborated to challenge existing HIV prevention approaches and develop new insights and recommendations for communicating and connecting with Black women about HIV.
Focus Areas
- Networks: Strengthen supportive networks for people living with and impacted by HIV and those who serve them.
- Linkage & Engagement: Support navigation help link, re-link and engage people in HIV prevention, treatment and care.
- Advocacy: Amplify the efforts of people living with and impacted by HIV to advocate for themselves. Strengthen leadership, insights an culture activities that reduce stigma and fuel community responses.
Funding Information
- The Risk to Reasons initiative will fund nonprofit organizations across the U.S., including Puerto Rico
- Organizations applying for project support may apply for up to $150,000 per year.
- Projects that include micro-granting and/or training for organizations and providers are eligible to apply for up to $250,000 per year.
- Eligible organizations may apply for a grant for 1- to 3-years of project work
Risk to Reasons funding is available for projects that
- Engage Black women to increase awareness and access to prevention. This includes:
- New community messengers and peer to peer storytelling campaigns around HIV Prevention and re-engagement in care
- Outreach, awareness and support campaigns focused on women with multiple reasons for HIV prevention
- Navigation and linkage to care programs that build community and clinical collaborations for HIV prevention for Black women
- Train Organizations and Providers to serve Black women, with a focus on service providers at the critical intersections of HIV and social determinants of health. This includes:
- Training for organizational staff and leadership to better understand and meet Black women’s prevention needs, with a particular focus on providers at the intersection of HIV, housing, harm reduction, mental health, STI/STD services, incarceration, and women’s wellness
- Training for medical providers to understand and meet Black women’s prevention needs, with an emphasis on providers in reproductive health, Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants
- Change the Narrative around HIV and Women building on the framework of Risk to Reasons including:
- Support for new storytellers and messengers around HIV prevention through micro grants and other strategies
- Arts based outreach and engagement events around HIV prevention and care
- Media advocacy and training work, including guides for journalists, creative writers and producers
- Creative advocacy to connect HIV and reproductive justice movements
- Local and national collaborations and coalitions working to advance access to HIV prevention for Black Women
Outcomes
Projects should demonstrate:
- Increased awareness of reasons for HIV prevention among Black women
- Increased visibility of messages, content and other tools that reflect the Risk to Reasons narrative among target audiences
- Increased capacity of service providers to adapt Risk to Reasons messaging to their programming and communications
- Enhanced infrastructure and stronger networks to meet the prevention and care needs of Black women that prioritize whole-person health
Eligibility Criteria
At minimum, eligible nonprofit organizations must meet all of the following criteria, and/or engage a Fiscal Sponsor that meets all of the following criteria:
- Be a 501(c)(3) Internal Revenue Service (IRS)-designated nonprofit organization
- Be located in the U.S. or Puerto Rico
- Provide programs and support primarily to those persons or communities impacted by or affected by HIV in the U.S.
- Received no more than 25 percent of your total operating budget (total annual revenue) in 2021 from ViiV Healthcare and anticipate the same for 2022
- Organizations applying for the grant must be the same organization receiving the funds and must be responsible for the implementation and management of the project
Criteria
Applications will be reviewed and considered based on their ability to:
- Increase the number of Black women who are actively engaged as community messengers around HIV prevention and care
- Reach and engage Black women with reasons for HIV prevention while responding to the social determinants of health that uniquely impact women of color
- Incoporate the core values and reasons of the Risk to Reasons initiative in order to change the narrative around HIV prevention and care among Black women and their providers
- Strengthen local community based infrastructure that can effectively engage women in HIV prevention and care and improve client/provider communication
- Develop partnerships and collaborations between community based organizations and health care providers that help more women get access and improve client/provider communication
- Collaborate with organizations that are outside of HIV specific services and connected broadly to women’s health and wellness, in particular with organizations providing services around sexual and reproductive health, housing/homelessness, substance use, mental health, incarceration/re-entry and others
- Demonstrate that women living with or impacted by HIV are included in the design, delivery and implementation of the project.
- Demonstrate organizational capacity, including:
- how the organization is uniquely connected to community and networks of women/networks serving Black women, both within and outside of the HIV and AIDS space
- organization and/or staff cultural competency for engaging with Black women
- organization and/or staff ability to communicate with and engage Black women with increasing scale and reach
For more information, visit https://viivhealthcare.com/en-us/supporting-the-hiv-community/positive-action/women-living-with-hiv/