This week on AHFter Hours, we hear from executive leadership about grant funding— getting it, using it, and why it’s so important for the long term success of AHF and its vital public health mission.
Getting to Know Grants
Exploring a vital part of AHF’s operations
GUEST BIOS:
Shibu Sam is the National Director of Contracts for the Aids Healthcare Foundation.
Artur Oktanyan is the AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s Senior Director of Grants.
Lyle Honig Mojica is the Chief Financial Officer for the Aids Healthcare Foundation.
CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:
[2:35] - Why Grants Matter
Lyle Honig Mojica on the importance of grants
Grants allow AHF to create a partnership with a local government, allowing AHF to expand what we do in the region and support the overall community. Meanwhile, it provides access to other forms of funding for extending AHF’s mission.
[5:03] - Grants Both Ways
How AHF provides grants of its own to smaller organizations
In addition to receiving grant funding (4% of AHF’s budget comes from grants), AHF also provides grant funding to other organizations— particularly during the pandemic. One way we do this is through AHF Fund, a program designed to help organizations at the grassroots level as they seek to improve the lives and wellbeing of people with HIV.
[9:03] - How to Donate
Want to help fund AHF’s mission? Here’s how.
AHF accepts direct donations online through the website using a credit card or, more recently, cryptocurrency. They also accept checks, which are often written by individuals in memory of someone they’ve lost to HIV or AIDS. Some companies— IBM and American Express, for example— will match any donations made by their employees.
RESOURCES:
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ABOUT AFTER HOURS:
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is the world’s largest HIV/AIDS service organization, operating in 45 countries globally. The mission? Providing cutting-edge medicine and advocacy for everyone, regardless of ability to pay.
The After Hours podcast is an official podcast of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, in which host Lauren Hogan is joined by experts in a range of fields to educate, inform, and inspire listeners on topics that go far beyond medical information to cover leadership, creativity, and success.
Learn more at: https://www.aidshealth.org
ABOUT THE HOST:
Lauren Hogan is the Associate Director of Communications for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and has been working in a series of roles with the Foundation since 2016. She’s passionate about increasing the public visibility of AIDS, the Foundation's critical work, and how everyday people can help join the fight to make cutting-edge medicine, treatment, and support available for anyone who needs it.
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Lauren Hogan:
Get unfiltered lessons from our leaders at AHF, as we uncover real raw stories of where we came from and where we are going. Join us for an unscripted look at the connections our senior leadership have to our mission, core values and hot initiatives. AHF is the world's largest HIV/AIDS service organization operating in 45 countries globally, 16 states domestically, including DC and Puerto Rico. Our mission is to provide cutting edge medicine and advocacy regardless of ability to pay.
Lauren Hogan:
Hello and welcome to the After Hours podcast. I'm your host Lauren Hogan serving as your liaison to take you through this journey to learn more about AIDS healthcare foundation. Before we start the show, please make sure to remember to check out the show notes so you can follow along. Now let's get started.
Lauren Hogan:
Well. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the After Hours podcast. As always, I'm your host Lauren Hogan and today we've got some special guests with us. Really quickly, I just want you guys to go around the screen, just introduce yourself really quickly and tell us what your title is at AHF and how long you've been here. So Shibu, I'm going to start with you.
Shibu Sam:
Yeah. My name is Shibu Sam. I'm the national director of contracts and I've been with the AHF for about close to five years now.
Lauren Hogan:
Artur?
Artur Oktanyan:
My name is Artur Oktanyan. I'm the senior director of grants and it'll be eight years in 10 days.
Lauren Hogan:
And Lyle?
Lyle Honig Mojica:
Hi, good morning. I'm Lyle Honig Mojica. I've been with the organization... I'm the chief financial officer and I've been with the organization for a little over 20 years.
Lauren Hogan:
So great. We're really excited to have you guys on the show today and we have an interesting topic too, which I know some of our listeners are going to be interested to hear about. So first and foremost, tell us what is a grant and why do we work so hard to obtain grant funding?
Artur Oktanyan:
So these are federal funds that we apply for and they allow us to get other types of funding when we're provided with those funds and it allow us to use our social enterprise and earn more funds and then use those funds to provide services to our clients.
Lauren Hogan:
Well, I have to say that was a very easy way to break that down so I appreciate that, because I know it's be interesting to hear about what our listeners tune in. Does Shibu or Lyle, you guys want to add anything to that? Or is that pretty straightforward?
Lyle Honig Mojica:
No, that's pretty straightforward. I guess I would just add one of the reasons I think obviously there are several reasons grants are really important to us. One is that it allows us to create a partnership with a local government and really gives us an opportunity to expand what we do in that region, with the relationship with the government and in a sense, supporting the overall community. As Artur said, the grant funding itself then gives us access to other forms of funding which are really critical for us extending our mission within that region and across the country.
Lauren Hogan:
So diving into the next thing. So how much of AHF's budget is covered by grants?
Lyle Honig Mojica:
I'll take this one. About 4% of our budget overall is covered by grants so that's a very small percentage of AHF's operation but although it's small, it's incredibly important for the reasons that we just talked about in terms of access to discounted pricing and things like that. If you look at just our affiliate population on an individual basis, so Aid Atlanta, ACQC, AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland, all of the amount of grant funding for those organizations is significantly higher as a percentage. It's closer to 75 to 90% of all the funds that they receive.
Lauren Hogan:
And so how does AHF find or apply for grants and how do we work with our funders?
Artur Oktanyan:
I'll take that one. So the way this works is funders have these special websites where they post their RFPs. Twice a week we check for these RFPs if they're been released or not and then also local staff, they learn of some RFPs and they let us know and once we find them, we apply for them. These are for opportunities that are renewals that we already have in those locations and then we also look for RFPs for prospective locations where we think there's a chance for us to go into that market and help more clients.
Lauren Hogan:
So you said RFPs, is that an acronym?
Artur Oktanyan:
Yes, it's Request for Proposal. So it's to apply with an application to get funds.
Lauren Hogan:
Gotcha. Okay. So also, you know, AHF, especially during the pandemic, for instance, you're providing grant funding to other small or smaller organizations, I should say, in the communities that we're serving. So what is a process for an organization like that to apply for an AHF grant?
Lyle Honig Mojica:
Sure. I'll take this one. We have a number of ways that AHF gives back to the communities that we work in. AHF Fund is a specific program that was developed several years ago to help organizations at grassroots level to have a bigger impact in the areas of helping improve lives and wellbeing of people with HIV. So it's pretty exciting that we put this program together a few years ago. The process is relatively simple. An AHF employee has to nominate the organization so at a local level, our employees interact with lots of organizations that provide value at a community level. That employee can nominate the organization and they go through an application process then there's an a committee within AHF of uninterested individuals so people that aren't really familiar with the situation and they evaluate the applications and then award basically the community an entity.
Lauren Hogan:
And so as a part of that process, do you guys ever get like feedback from these organizations about, you know, what the funding is possibly used for, for how desperately they needed it? Do you guys ever get feedback after we provide these grants?
Lyle Honig Mojica:
Sure. The application process really helps define what they plan to use the dollars for, the support for and AHF has criteria relative to what we want them to spend the money on and it's generally a pretty broad, but it mirrors or it supports what AHF does overall. It sort of gets to the same mission that AHF has.
Lauren Hogan:
And so what made AHF decide to start providing funding or these grants to other organizations? And do they also strictly only promote HIV testing and awareness and prevention, or do we kind of broaden the scope when we're providing these dollars?
Lyle Honig Mojica:
I guess it was recognized a long time ago that AHF, although we are large and we have a big presence and we can do a lot within our organization, we can't do everything so I think being able to extend the organizations and communities that really are doing great work, that was a good opportunity for us and given the size and our ability to do that, we're happy to help support those programs. The criteria is, like I said, it's a bit broader. We've had food as there's food scarcity across the country and across the world so we've had opportunities to allow people to help fund the food programs in some of their countries, as well as a number of other things that, like I said, that complement what AHF does.
Lauren Hogan:
And if you can share the amount, but how much have we given to smaller community organizations to date?
Lyle Honig Mojica:
Over the last several years, we've given anywhere between $13 to $15 million a year in all kinds of contributions so the AHF Fund, as well as sponsorships throughout domestically so within the US, we provide sponsorships to local entities as well so these are relationships that our employees have with small organizations and these are generally to support events or particular contribution campaigns that a small organization has. This year, we're trending to spend closer to $16 million in total, a across the contributions we'll give.
Lauren Hogan:
And is it possible for people to actually donate to AHF? Because I know sometimes if I'm out in the field, you know, folks are like, oh, can I donate? So if there is a process, how do they do that and what does that kind of look like?
Lyle Honig Mojica:
Sure. I'll describe... I'll start and Artur can certainly add to this. We have on our website, we have a couple different ways for people to give. We have the ability to use a credit card and process a contribution. We also accept cryptocurrency, which is new to us as well, but we're excited to be able to do that. In addition, we accept checks, you know, there are individuals who leave parts of their estate to us as well and that comes in through our tourist team, which is great. In a month or so we're... I'm pretty excited about this, in a month or so we're actually expanding the website to include different ways or additional ways for people to provide funding or contribute to specific activities within AHF.
Artur Oktanyan:
So when people donate via check, a lot of times they'll donate it in memory of someone. Someone who has died from HIV or AIDS and that entices them to donate more generally. Also a lot of companies, they do matching donations so whatever the employee donates they'll match it. IBM is one of them, American Express and there are other companies that do this.
Lauren Hogan:
So Shibu, I want to bring you into the conversation really quick. Can you kind of give us a little bit of a deeper dive into your role and what exactly it entails just so we kind of have a better understanding?
Shibu Sam:
Okay. Yeah. I mean you know our tourist teams and my team are sides of a coin actually. I mean once a grant is awarded, then that moves on to the contracts department and then that's when contracts department take over, my team will take over and communicate with our program staff to make sure that we are in compliance with all those contracts' requirements and also completing the billing process.
Lauren Hogan:
And so those contracts that we have though, they cover basically what does that cover? Is it anything from A to Z? Just so we have like an idea of what that looks like, because we do do so many different things at AHF, there's a lot of different arms and legs. So when you get these contracts, what are exactly are they entailing and looking like?
Shibu Sam:
The contracts mainly look at at the HIV care and treatment and also medication and also as prevention of HIV.
Lauren Hogan:
Great. So honestly, guys, I have to tell you, this has been very insightful and very helpful. Are there any final thoughts that you guys want to have that you want to share with us?
Lyle Honig Mojica:
No, I don't. This has been fun. Thank you.
Artur Oktanyan:
Thank you.
Lauren Hogan:
Well, as always, thank you guys for tuning in to After Hours podcast and we'll see you next time.
Lauren Hogan:
Thank you so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the show, please subscribe, share it with your friends, like, post about it on social media or leave a rating and review. Follow us on Instagram @afterhours and see you next time.