As AIDS Marks 25th Anniversary, Horizons Foundation Recalls Landmark Grants

SAN FRANCISCO - With the approach of this year's World AIDS Day on December 1, marking 25 years of the AIDS pandemic, Horizons Foundation recalled its historic role as the first foundation in the U.S. to support organizations fighting the disease.

Established in 1980, Horizons was the world's first community foundation focused exclusively on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. "At the time, the LGBT movement was still quite new and funding was nearly impossible to find for the work that needed to be done," said Roger Doughty, Horizons' Executive Director. "Horizons provided a way for our community to take care of our own when no one else would."

In 1982, Horizons' grantmaking took a dramatic turn in response to a disease breaking out among gay men in New York and California that became known as AIDS.

Helen Schietinger, the part-time nurse-coordinator of the Kaposi's Sarcoma Clinic at UCSF, contacted the foundation for funding when there was nowhere else to turn, including the university itself. That same year, Horizons gave the Kaposi's Sarcoma Research and Education Foundation (later the San Francisco AIDS Foundation) a grant for their first newsletter, an early source of up-to-date, reliable information on the epidemic for healthcare professionals, the media, those who had been infected, and the "worried well." In their application, the KS Foundation underscored the importance of the project by noting that "approximately 650 cases of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome diseases have been identified across the country, and new cases are being identified at the rate of three per day." These grants were the first time any foundation in the country had supported an AIDS service provider.

Horizons also funded groups working on other aspects of the AIDS epidemic. For example, Horizons made a grant to the Legal Aid Society, which took on early AIDS discrimination cases. In one landmark victory, they sued an insurance company that required unmarried men who worked as "restaurant employees, antique dealers, interior decorators, consultants, florists, or in the jewelry or fashion business" to answer discriminatory health questions.

Project Open Hand also received its first grant from Horizons. Ruth Brinker, a retired grandmother, had started cooking meals in a local church basement for seven men with AIDS, using food donations and her own money. The foundation not only gave POH the maximum grant award, but also found it a fiscal sponsor and helped it secure its nonprofit status. Former Horizons board member Mark Hetts remembers this grant as one of his proudest Horizons memories. "Ruth was the kind of person who saw a need and tried to fill it. And now, Project Open Hand is a spectacular success."

Other early grants supported a free five-day workshop with renowned author Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross for men with AIDS; a helpful brochure for friends of people with AIDS; and training videos for healthcare workers.

"The AIDS crisis brought our community's compassion and generosity into sharp relief as we came together to care for our sick and our dying," said Doughty. "And Horizons was there, every step of the way. The history of AIDS reminds us that our own willingness to give can have an impact far beyond our borders-just look at what UCSF and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation have been able to achieve.

"That's why Horizons' mission remains as critical as ever. None of us can know what's around the corner, but we've proven that our community can face any issue-even something as devastating as AIDS-with compassion and generosity."

In 2006, Horizons Foundation expects to make over $500,000 in HIV-related grants.