The Gilead COMPASS Initiative awarded Transformative Grants to 32 nonprofits battling the HIV epidemic in the South. Together, the recipients represent all nine states in the deep South, and they’re focused on reducing stigma, building organizational capacity, addressing HIV-related disparities in the South and promoting well-being, mental health and trauma-informed care.
An overview of the 2019 Transformative Grant partnersCourtesy of Southern AIDS Coalition and Gilead Sciences
The Gilead COMPASS Initiative—the name stands for “COMmitment to Partnership in Addressing HIV/AIDS in Southern States”—is part of pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences’ commitment to invest $ 100 million over 10 years to fighting HIV in the South, which is the epicenter of today’s epidemic.
The 2019 Transformative Grants are funded through the initiative’s three coordinating centers: Emory University Rollins School of Public Health; the Southern AIDS Coalition and the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work.
For a complete list and summary of the 32 grant partners click here.
Grantees were chosen through a competitive application process. A summary of the recipients’ qualities can be viewed in the infographic above.
“The quality and diversity of proposals we received speaks to the tremendous and fundamental work being led in the South,” said Dafina Ward, JD, the senior manager of grant operations and strategy at the Southern AIDS Coalition, in a press release. “Elevating Southern nonprofit organizations who are addressing stigma and intersecting issues in their provision of HIV-related services is a key objective of our Transformative Grant funding. We look forward to not only working with, and learning from, our 2019 partners, but additional partners in years to come, with the unified goal of making positive strides towards ending the HIV epidemic in the South.”
Gilead Sciences launched the COMPASS program in December 2017. You can read more about it here and here.