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Dear Colleagues,
Today is an exciting day for us at FCAA. With this e-news, we are officially launching our new website, Facebook page and Twitter account! At last year’s inaugural Annual Gathering we were encouraged by your belief in our approach to inform and convene our community and partners, and thus, create the opportunity for collaboration. Our improved online profile offers an exciting new platform to highlight and share the amazing work being done every day by the AIDS philanthropic community. We’ve redesigned the site to make it easier and more enjoyable to navigate and find information. Here are just a few of the new features:
• An improved Resource Tracking section with top funder lists (based on the 2008 report) and a new, flash version of U.S. Philanthropic Support to Address HIV/AIDS in 2008 that can be searched, downloaded, e-mailed to colleagues or shared online;
• A new FCAA publications section that catalogues resources by publication type and date; and,
• An RSS feed of FCAA news & publications on the home page, and links to our new Facebook and Twitter accounts.
We hope you begin to think of our site as a tool to help mobilize and build awareness for your work. Our new Facebook and Twitter accounts will also help us reach new funders, policymakers, advocates and other stakeholder around the world. These new connections will better position us to achieve our mission to mobilize leadership, ideas and resources of U.S.-based funders to eradicate the HIV/AIDS pandemic – domestically and internationally – and to address its social and economic consequences.
Over the coming months we will be adding new information and resources to our site, and, and with your support, more stories and statistics on your work.
Take a look, and tell us what you think! We welcome your feedback and ideas as we move forward. Please send comments, ideas, and feedback to sarah@fcaaids.org.
Warmest Regards,
John L. Barnes
Executive Director
10 MINUTES WITH: Suzana Grego, Firelight Foundation
 We are extremely pleased to profile Suzana Grego, Director of Communications and Advocacy at the Firelight Foundation. Suzana joined Firelight almost two years ago, bringing with her an extensive background in high-tech public relations and human rights-based work, most recently with the International Center for Transitional Justice in New York. In fall 2009 Firelight launched a brand new communications strategy and in December 2009 a new website to celebrate the beginning of their 10th year in grantmaking. Suzana shared with us how their blend of communications and advocacy is advancing their outreach strategy and helping to build the profile and capacity of their grantee-partners.
According to Suzana, Firelight's "experience in building a social network that's integrated into a more traditional communications strategy offers a good lesson for other small organizations that have to find ways to stretch already limited resources even further as they go out and seek new supporters. Below are just a few of her recommendations and lessons-learned:
1. A website is one of your most important faces to the world, but will take as much time as you give it. Think of it as your base platform for building your communications – get it on the fast track and realize it can and will change during the process.
2. Be realistic about the time and resources needed to get to launch – and commit yourself. Get into deadline mode and into the habit of updating things regularly, or you can fall out of the habit (and off the radar).
3. Think about different media possibilities – not just the written word. A photo or video is easy to post and create a conversation around, and can communicate volumes.
4. Cross-pollinate! Once you have something to share, send it out across your different networks: a blog can be tweeted, then shared on Facebook. Always keep in mind your "consumers" and the different ways they want to consume your content.
5. Customize your metrics to match your project phase. If you are focused on engaging current users/stakeholders, then look at more qualitative indicators like the quality and duration of their engagement, and what actions they take as a result of it. But as you look to reach new audiences, the harder "traffic" numbers also become more interesting.
6. Think objectively about the "unique" value you have to offer to various audiences. Social networks can open your organization up to a whole new groups of users who will be experiencing your content and resources for the first time - make sure to hold their attention and keep them coming back with useful, relevant content.
7. It’s not an exact science. Keep your eyes and ears open and learn from what you see (others doing succesfully) out there.
Read the rest of the article.
GET INVOLVED: Interested in Funding Advocacy?
Last week the FCAA Board of Directors approved a new committee structure to help engage our members in program planning. Just one of the resulting opportunities includes the new funder Domestic Advocacy Working Group (DAWG), which convened its first meeting on March 10th to discuss the current state of domestic HIV/AIDS advocacy, and to 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.
Read on to find out what was discussed, and how to get involved.
FCAA NEWS & EVENTS
1. There’s still time to RSVP for the 3/23 Funder Briefing: HIV Testing and Written, Informed Consent in New York: Where Policy, Community and Funding Intersect. Join a growing list of confirmed colleagues from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, and Washington, D.C. who will be dialing in or attending this important discussion. Whether you fund in New York or beyond, we invite you to take part in this briefing and learn how grantmakers can prepare in advance and partner with their grantees to respond to major shifts in the field. RSVP to sarah@fcaaids.org.
2. FCAA is excited to be co-hosting the annual “All for One” affinity group reception Monday, April 26th at the Council on Foundations 2010 Annual Conference. Our networks come together at a broad intersection of topics, including equity, health, rights, and sexuality. Please join us and more than 20 other affinity groups as we honor our commonalities and get together in a relaxed atmosphere to see old friends and make new acquaintances.
Not a Council Member? No Problem! The Council has extended member rates for the 2010 Annual conference to all members of Council-recognized affinity groups. For the FCAA promotion code, contact sarah@fcaaids.org.
3. FCAA is pleased to announce the launch of our 2010 Resource Tracking Survey to collect grant disbursements, commitments, and other foundation activities during calendar year 2009. Every grant counts, and we encourage you to complete this survey even if you made only one HIV/AIDS grant in 2009. The survey is now available online.
RECENT HEADLINES
1. Former President Clinton, Bill Gates Encourage U.S. Global Health Investment At Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing Former President Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said Wednesday at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing "that U.S. investments in fighting [HIV/] AIDS, malaria and other diseases in underdeveloped nations save lives and play a vital role in improving America's image abroad," the Associated Press reports. Just as HIV experts are beginning to see new hope in beating the AIDS epidemic, a funding crisis threatens to throw us back a decade or more in the effort to combat this deadly virus. (Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, 3/11/2010) Their statements were underscored by a number of other HIV experts, including Dr. Peter Mugyenyi, director of Uganda’s Joint Clinical Research Center, whose forceful testimony detailed the effects of PEPFAR flat-funding. Dr. Mugyenyi recounted being forced to “turn away sick patients who were promised treatment...as many as 15 to 20 patients a day, including pregnant and breastfeeding women.” (Science Speaks: HIV and TB News, 3/11/2010). Watch Dr. Mugyenyi’s deliver his remarks to the panel.
Learn more:
2. New Funder-led Initiatives Provide Female Condoms in Washington, D.C. and Chicago. Global Support Growing.
In the lead up to National Women & Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (3/10), two exciting new (and funder-led) campaigns were launched to provide greater access to and education on female condoms - an important HIV and pregnancy prevention tool. The M.A.C AIDS Fund, Washington AIDS Partnership, CVS, Female Health Company and the D.C. HIV and AIDS Administration have formed a public-private partnership to expand access to female condoms to women, men and youth in D.C. The FC2 will be distributed free of charge in D.C., the second city program to do so. It will be programmed and distributed by local NGOs such as Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan D.C., the Women's Collective, and the Community Education Group. CVS will also stock the FC2 in the Washington, D.C. area. (PR Newswire, 3/9/2010). In Chicago, a coalition of HIV/AIDS (including the AIDS Foundation of Chicago), reproductive justice, women's health, and gay men's health organizations yesterday launched the Chicago Female Condom Campaign: Put a Ring On It. The social marketing campaign will “educate women about HIV/AIDS and boost awareness, availability, and access to the FC2 Female Condom®, the only FDA approved woman-initiated HIV prevention method currently available.” (PR Newswire, 3/8/2010). On the global front, a civil society statement signed by more than 200 international organizations demanding increased female condom distribution and programming was unveiled during the recent United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. (Huffington Post, 3/8/2010).
3. CDC: New MSM HIV Diagnoses 44 Times That of Other Men The rate of new HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men is more than 44 times that of other men and more than 40 times that of women, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). According to Kevin Fenton, MD, Director of CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, "It is clear that we will not be able to stop the U.S. HIV epidemic until every affected community, along with health officials nationwide, prioritize the needs of gay and bisexual men with HIV prevention efforts.” (Bay Area Reporter, 3/10/2010). Earlier the same week the CDC announced the launch of the social media campaign “I know,” aimed at young African-American adults.
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