HIV Positive Action Southern Initiative

viiv@tccgrp.com

ViiV Healthcare provides grants and learning community support for projects focused on reaching more people with HIV in southern communities who are out of care and connecting them to care. Projects should focus on populations that are disproportionately impacted by HIV, especially people in rural communities, young people, women of color, gay and bisexual men of color, transgender people, people currently or formerly incarcerated, sex workers, and people who use drugs.

Project strategies should include:

• Expanding outreach and navigation capacity to focus on people who are out-of-care and provide high touch support for people navigating healthcare systems
• Partnering with other health and community services to build infrastructure that can help better reach and serve people who are not in care
• Connecting people with strong social and emotional supportive services to address barriers to care and build networks of support

Activities may include, but are not limited to:

• Adapting or expanding linkage, re-linkage, and engagement programs to respond to the needs of people living with HIV and/or AIDS (PLWHA) who have fallen out of care due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic
• Expanding or enhancing peer-led interventions that help link, re-link, and navigate people through care, including outreach, case management, and peer navigation
• Building connections and collaborations with different organizations that are critical to successfully identifying, linking/re-linking, and engaging PLWHA who are out-of-care, such as housing organizations, mental healthcare, churches, healthcare providers, social service organizations, workforce development agencies, and transportation services
• Improving project and staff capacity to provide culturally appropriate resources for people who are out-of-care while linking and navigating individuals into care, including hiring harm reduction specialists, bilingual staff, and peers who have experienced challenges to engaging in care
• Enhancing stigma reduction strategies, including developing safe spaces, to foster leadership and self-advocacy among PLWHA

To be eligible to apply, 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) 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.
• Receive no more than 25% of the organization's total operating budget 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

Award ceiling: $75,000 per year
Project period: 2 years
Estimated number of awards: 10

Links to additional guidance, application instructions, and the online application portal are available on the program website.