Approaching My 20th Anniversary

As I approach my 20th anniversary at NMAC, I am trying to capture some of our history. NMAC’s history is the history of the AIDS movement, especially for communities of color.

Part of why I was hired in 1989 was to make a decision about the future of NMAC. At that time, the board was seriously considering closing the agency, we had just found out how much debt the agency was carrying and our inability to pay staff. On my first day at NMAC, I had to write a personal check for $5,000 to cover the upcoming payroll and I let go of half the staff (4 out of 8). As you can imagine, I was not particularly popular with the surviving staff. Part of my reputation for being “a hard ass” was because of these actions.

The board and I made a decision that I would spend 3 months trying to save the agency, or we would close it responsibly. Part of why I feel so attached to our mission is that we fought so hard to keep NMAC open and to keep our mission going.

Like many agencies back then, there was no there, there. NMAC was all potential and no substance. We had no real programming, or at least no real programming that had value to our constituents. We were also broke with few new opportunities. We were doing lots of things, staff was very busy, but the things they were doing really didn’t matter.

Staff at that time did not understand that distinction. They would tell me “look at all these reports we are doing, look at all the meetings we are attending.” For them, being busy was the same as being valued. They forgot that at the end of the day, all the great ideas require resources to make them happen. Without money, you are just potential.

By early 1990 I set about creating some ..there
Computer Give Away Program
CBO Meeting as part of International AIDS Conference
CDC Funding

We needed an early win, something that was visible, showed substance and brought much needed funds into NMAC. In 1990, computers were still not fully understood by the nonprofit world. I was very concerned that our constituents (people of color) would be left behind in a technology divide. Computers were still a novelty, those agencies that had computers could do better accounting, better design, and could get rid of the old IBM electric typewriters. Typewriters were what we used before we had computers.

Working with my friend, Fred Silverman, the head of corporate contributions at Apple, we started the computer give away program. Fred was an out gay man working in corporate America who wanted to do something about AIDS. Like many of us, he was losing too many friends. I had met Fred in my previous job as the Executive Director of the National AIDS Network (another story for another day).

The reality is that I stole lots of the funders from my previous job and brought them to NMAC. I know that everyone thinks funding is about the good work of the agency and that might be true for some funding. For corporate/foundation money, it is much more about relationships. Funders have to make the difficult decision between many qualified nonprofits. Who they choose will survive and grow, who they don’t choose will close. When you have two equally qualified nonprofits, how do you choose? Usually, funders select the agencies where they have personal relationships. It is these relationships that gives funders the “courage” to believe that someone will do what they say they are going to do.

Working with Fred, NMAC received a $250,000 grant to purchase Apple computers for our constituents. I was also a founding board member at NAPWA, so we also funded PWA Coalitions. There aren’t many PWA Coalitions left in the movement, but in those days, they were the cornerstone for PWA empowerment. PWA Coalitions were organizations that tried to have the majority of the board and staff be People With AIDS. They were doing for their own, kinda like FUBU. Most cities had at least one such coalition, some cities like NY, SF and LA had several.

NMAC’s computer program stared in 1990, and continues today. Computers gave NMAC substance, a viable program and much needed money. In the future we would continue the mission of this program with the Office of AIDS Research (OAR), not Apple. To date, we’ve provided over 1,200 CBOs with computers and internet access.

International Conference
In those days, the International AIDS Conference was held every year. In 1991 it was slated for San Francisco. Since I had started the National Skills Building Conference at my last job, I had gained a reputation for putting on meetings. In 1990, NMAC got a $150,000 grant from the United Nations to do the pre-conference for “community” prior to the SF meeting. That year, Senator Jesse Helms decided that he would codify restrictions against foreign PWAs from entering the US for either travel or immigration. As a result, the international community proposed a “boycott” of the US until this policy was changed. To this day, the International Conference has not happened in the US because of these policies. We are hoping with a new administration that we can reverse this policy and bring the conference back to the US in 2012.

So NMAC had a big decision. The UN told us we could either hold the meeting in SF or move it outside of the country, it was our decision. In other words, they did not want to take the “heat” for this decision. There was intense lobbying, the US government wanted us to keep the meeting in SF and not embarrass the government, international activists wanted the meeting outside of the US. Ultimately, NMAC decided to support the boycott and we moved the meeting to Paris. This was a pivotal decision, we let everyone know that we would always support community, even if it got us in trouble with the government.

In 1991 we held the meeting in Paris. I can honestly say it was the worse meeting I have ever held. It was so bad that I vowed never to hold another international meeting. I’ve stayed true to my words, except we did hold a NATAF in Vancouver and Mexico. I would also come to regret these decision. (another story for another time)

CDC Funding
In 1990, we also received our first CDC funding to provide technical assistance to community based organizations. This money was on top of an existing grant with the Office Of Minority Health to provide similar services. NMAC has provided some form of capacity building for over 20 years.

Between OMH, the new CDC funding, and grants from Apple and the United Nations, we were able to cobble together enough resources to keep our doors open. By the end of 1991, it was no longer a question of staying open, it now became about creating substance and programs that had value to our constituents and could be funded via government, corporate or foundation grants.

Running NMAC
For my perspective, there is not such thing as a “natural” manager. Learning to manage people is a skill that takes time and commitment. Senior staff is currently reading a book by Malcolm Gladwell where he says that to be good at anything, it takes 10,000 hours of practice. I was very lucky, I had a board that allowed me to make mistakes and gain those 10,000 hours.

During my early years at NMAC I was unhappy and angry. You have to understand, I was going to 2 to 3 funerals per month. I felt powerless, the only thing I could do was hold my friends hands and tell them “its ok to let go.” You do that 100 times and see how you feel. At the same time, I did not feel like I could give voice to my anger. Who am I to be angry? I am still alive. Who am I to be unhappy? I am not rotting in a hospital with doctors and nurses afraid to touch me.

So I stuffed my anger, I denied my unhappiness. This made me and NMAC a toxic place to work; however, most AIDS organizations in those days were toxic. No matter how hard we all worked, we could not stop the dying. It was up to the scientist to make that happen. Even when we got our first break in 1996 with combination therapy, we were still very cautious. How many time before had we been promised “the cure”? It really wasn’t until 2000 when I started to believe that these treatments may work. Unfortunately, 2000 was also the year that Bush II was elected.

I still have moments of anger, but they’ve been replaced mostly by sorrow. I grieve for the hundreds of thousands of gay men who died. There is a whole generation of my peers who are not here. I grieve for the little boy I used to be, the one who came to Washington in 1986 to fight AIDS. I was all potential and no substance. I really believed I could change the world. In many ways, I think we did... but we paid a very heavy price for this change.