Eight Years of Community-Led HIV Impact in the South
Since 2017, the Southern HIV Impact Fund has supported community-rooted organizations across the South as they advanced HIV prevention, care, advocacy, and long-term infrastructure in communities facing deep inequities and persistent barriers to care. Over eight years, the Fund distributed more than $15.3 million through 274 grants to 105 organizations, expanding services, deepening partnerships, and reinforcing local leadership shaped by trust and lived experience.
About the Fund
The Southern HIV Impact Fund was created as a collaborative response to the disproportionate impact of HIV in the Southern United States. Grounded in the belief that local organizations are best positioned to lead change, the Fund invested in groups working across HIV services and the social determinants of health, with a strong focus on Black, Latinx, and LGBTQ+ communities.
Its reach spanned Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, while also supporting regional collaboration across state lines.
The Approach
Alongside grant funding, the Fund provided general operating support, technical assistance, leadership development, technology support, and partnership-building opportunities. People living with HIV helped shape priorities throughout.
Together, these supports built grantee infrastructure, strengthened organizational resilience during crises, and kept grantees responsive to their communities, even as the policy and funding environment shifted.
Program Scale and Community Reach
Beneficiaries Demographic Overview
Meaningful Involvement of People Living with HIV (MIPA)
MIPA was a core part of SHIF’s approach across all eight years. Through focus groups, surveys, town halls, and other community input spaces, grantees created structured ways for people living with or impacted by HIV to inform programming, shape priorities, and guide implementation.
Empowering Southern Leaders
The Leadership Development Program strengthened Southern HIV leadership through sustained mentorship, technical assistance, and practical learning opportunities over time. Across eight years, the program cultivated local leaders, supported their growth through a year-long development cycle, and expanded their ability to lead, connect, and respond within their communities.
Participants received mentoring, technical assistance, and service-learning opportunities that translated leadership development into community action.
The iFORWARD Program: Strengthening Digital Capacity in the South
Launched in 2022, iFORWARD addressed digital inequities affecting Southern organizations working in HIV prevention, care, and outreach. By pairing flexible funding with technical assistance, the program strengthened digital infrastructure, supported real-time problem solving, expanded telehealth and hybrid engagement, and increased organizational capacity without adding administrative burden.
Civic Engagement: Get Out the Vote
The Fund’s Get Out the Vote mini-grants connected civic engagement to health equity by supporting trusted, community-based voter outreach across the South. Grantees combined digital engagement, relationship building, barrier reduction, and rapid response strategies to expand voter access in communities most impacted by HIV and broader structural inequities.