BACKGROUND

RESULTS Educational Fund (REF) is offering RESULTS grassroots groups the opportunity to undertake TB/HIV advocacy activities for World AIDS Day (WAD) 2012 that might not be possible without support funding. Activities can fall betweenNovember 1, 2012 and December 15, 2012. We are making funds availablethrough a competitive grant application processfor WAD events and TB awareness building in your communities. These mini-grants are funded through REF’s ACTION project.

ACTION is a global partnership of advocacy organizations working to influence policy and mobilize resources to fight diseases of poverty and improve equitable access to health services. However, ACTION still focuses on mobilizing resources to treat and prevent the spread of tuberculosis (TB), a global disease that kills one person every 20 seconds.
ACTION’s mission is to build support for increased resources for effective TB control, especially among key policymakers and other opinion leaders in both high TB burden countries and donor countries. With effective policy advocacy and greater political will, rapid progress can be made against the global TB epidemic. ACTION has also recentlyexpanded advocacy efforts to increase coverage of new and basic vaccines for children, which save approximately 3 million lives every year.

TB Advocacy mini-grants are an opportunity to mobilize ACTION resources to highlight the global impact of tuberculosis in your community and to think creatively about how to leverage constituent support, and public engagement to create political will.

Funding levels for projects can vary depending on scope and potential outcomes and can range up to $2000.

World AIDS Day 2012: The Beginning of the End of AIDS

Why outreach and advocacy events on World AIDS Day? Annually on December 1, the global community commemorates World AIDS Day by bringing attention to the global epidemic that still infects 2.7 million new people and claims 2 million lives every year. These are sobering numbers, but this year World AIDS Day comes after a string of stunning scientific advances that has fundamentally altered the possibilities in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The end of the AIDS epidemic is within our grasp, and we must build stronger chapters and action networks to continue our advocacy.

AIDS Treatment is Prevention

In May 2011, researchers announced the results of a breakthrough study that proved conclusively what AIDS researchers had long suspected: treating HIV-positive people with anti-retroviral therapy (ART) can reduce the risk that they transmit the virus to their uninfected partners. In fact, researchers found that when treatment was initiated early in the progression of the disease (as opposed to waiting for the patients to become sick), there was a 96 percent reduction in the risk of transmission.

Early AIDS treatment not only reduces transmission of HIV, it can also protect HIV-positive people from opportunistic infections like TB. The study found that early AIDS treatment reduced the occurrence of TB infection by 84 percent.

The implications of the study for the future of HIV/AIDS are momentous. We now know that treatment is prevention.

This evidence, combined with recent economic modeling that shows that investing more in AIDS now will not only reduce deaths but also reduce the cost of the epidemic in the long run, shows that we can turn the tides against HIV/AIDS if we have the political will.

Translating Evidence into Action

Despite this emerging opportunity, global AIDS spending fell in 2010 for the first time in a decade. It is in this context of bold new evidence and wavering political commitment that we approach World AIDS Day 2012. World AIDS Day will be a critical moment to begin to make the case to members of Congress and the White House that U.S. global AIDS policy must continue to follow the evidence.

What makes this World AIDS Day so significant is it will occur just after the elections. It will be an important time to show new members of Congress and the President that they must continue to commit to funding the End of AIDS.

The U.S. has led the way in scaling up treatment so that today 6.6 million people are on therapy. U.S.-funded research has proven that aggressively scaling up treatment can prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and save lives from TB. The United States’ top infectious disease expert, Dr. Tony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, recently wrote, “for the first time in the history of HIV/AIDS, controlling and ending the pandemic are feasible.”

World AIDS Day Outreach Events Build Momentum

RESULTS activists across the country can use World AIDS Day as a platform for creating media and building political will to end these deadly diseases through actions and events.The resources below will help you as you reach out to your community, the media, and your members of Congress.

Ideas Types of Activities:

Be creative in thinking about what you can do to educate and engage your community on TB-HIV. Some ideas to consider might be:

  • Organize a community panel discussion on TB-HIV co-infection and invite the media, community members, and members of Congress.
  • Reach out to local HIV/AIDS groups to build coalition support around events that could highlight TB-HIV.
  • Organize a conference call for journalists with local or state TB experts (e.g. a state TB controller, a patient advocate).
  • Hold a screening and discussion of a TB-HIV related film such as How to Survive a Plague or Cresson TB Sanitarium Remembered and relate them to international TB/HIV
  • Research the history of TB in your community and do a public art show, display, discussion or other community event to bring attention to it and the current state of affairs of TB in the world.
  • Bring a TB-inspired art exhibit, like that of David Rochkind’s that is available for touring from the RESULTS office, to your local university, art gallery, or place of worship.
  • Work with your local opera on their production of La Boheme or La Traviata and make the connection to TB.
  • Organize a book club around an appropriate TB/HIV related book like 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa or Race Against Time.
  • Identify and work with one or more TB patients from your community to help them become advocates. Find opportunities for them to write and be published, speak out publicly, speak anonymously, on a radio program for example. RESULTS has contacts to some former TB patients as well.
  • Create an event – a rally, a walk, a candlelight vigil – that brings media attention to TB.

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS

Submission Timeline:

  • Applications will be reviewed starting September 8, 2012 and applications must be received before COBOctober 15, 2012.
  • Applicants should note that the approval and disbursement process will take up to 4 weeks as grants will be reviewed, subject to edits based on REF feedback, contracts will be drawn up and they must be signed and mailed back before funds are released. Early applications are highly encouraged if you need the funding before the day of the event.
  • Grants will be awarded on a rolling basis. Early applications will be prioritized to receive feedback.
  • Applications should be submitted to Allyson Goldsmith via email at .

Eligibility:

To qualify for this grant you must be a partner in an active RESULTS chapter. Eligibility will be evaluated prior to application evaluation.

Guidelines:

Each application will be evaluated independently on the activity’s creativity, potential impact in the community, the group’s capacity to deliver on the project, and proposed advocacy outcomes.

Successful applications will be required to do the following:

  • Propose an event, series of events, training program, or other activities in your community that will educate and build support for global tuberculosis control and be in line with the grant objective(s) listed in the application below. Ideally, project activities will take advantage of publicity potential on/World AIDS Day (WAD), December 1, 2012.
  • Appoint a Local Grant Manager for this grant that will be responsible for communicating with REF staff about resource allocations,providing financial and narrative/evaluation reports to REF after the activity is completed, and collecting and submitting all receipts back to the DC office.
  • Completea final financial report detailing expenses and showing if there is a balance of funds. Unspent funds in excess of $500 should be returned to REF. Any balance under $500 may be applied to TB follow-up activities after discussion with and approval by REF staff.
  • Provide a final evaluation of the event(s) that includes:
  • A write up of how the grant objectives were or were not met
  • Pictures and a write up of the activities and accomplishments for posting on the RESULTS blog.
  • A debrief of lessons learned and ideas for improvement.

Restrictions:

Grant funds may not be used for lobbying. Lobbying activity includes any action or communication intended to influence specific legislation, including appropriations bills. Grantees should consult with REF staff to ensure funded projects comply with this provision.

Grant funding may not be used to pay salaries or wages to compensate for time or work performed to implement grant activities. This restriction does not include payment for professional services such as printing, catering or audio-visual services.

APPLICATION

INFORMATION AND SUMMARY:

RESULTS Group: ______

RESULTS Group member acting as the Local Grant Manager: ______

(Local grant manager will be responsible for fulfilling the above guidelines, liaising with REF staff about the funding and activities maintaining receipts and submitting the financial report and grant evaluation at the completion of event.)

Name / Email / Phone

Mailing Address: ______

Other Group Participants:

Name / Email / Phone

FUNDING REQUEST:

Event Title:______

Funding Level Requested: __$______

Main objective(s) that this event will address:

□ Building community partnerships to grow constituent support for TB-HIV or Treatment as Prevention

□ Outreach to new individuals

□ Outreach to new community groups

□ Building public awareness and educating people on the impact of TB-HIV locally/globally

□ Engaging local media on the issue of TB, or TB-HIV

□ Educating/involving members of Congress and/or their staff on TB or TB-HIV

EVENT DESCRIPTION:

Describe your idea for an event(s) or activity. Include the goal for the number of people involved, which partner groups you would include, and how this would engage the broader community in the issue of TB or TB/HIV co-infection.

OUTCOMES:

Describe up to three significant impacts or outcomes your group hopes to attain through this event. The outcomes should relate back to the proposed objectives above. Also, what impact will the project activities have in building your RESULTS group’s relationships in the community and with key decision makers and the media?

PROPOSED BUDGET:

Attach your budget for the entire project, including the request for a grant amount. The proposed budget request should not exceed $2000. You can add more rows to the table if necessary.

Budget Item / Amount

Total Amount Requested:

PROPOSED TIMELINE/WORK PLAN:

Write out your timeline for the project and how you plan to meet the above-mentioned objectives. Who are the players? Who will you reach out to and by when? How will these actions meet your objectives for World AIDS Day?

EVALUATION CRITERIA

Please tell us how you will evaluate the success of this grant project. Evaluation can occur throughout the project and/or at the end of the grant period. As you write your plan, ask these questions: Who should be involved in the evaluation (staff, committees, etc.), how will we gather information (surveys, excel sheets, etc), who will head the evaluation, and when will you complete the evaluation? If your grant has more than one activity, you may want to design a plan for each resource or activity. Your evaluation should relate directly to how you will measure your key objectives. Ideally, your evaluation plan will relate to the impacts you described on the previous page.