Past Work: HIV/AIDs
When the HIV/AIDS crisis emerged, The Starr Foundation’s longstanding commitment to supporting scientific and medical research, and basic human needs and dignity, along with the actuarial background and worldwide reach of the Board of Trustees, enabled a timely and informed response that continues to improve lives today.
In 1990, the Foundation helped launch what was then the largest U.S. philanthropic collaboration dedicated to supporting HIV/AIDS services and preventive programs in local communities with a $250,000 gift to the National Community AIDS Partnership (later renamed the National AIDS Fund).
The Foundation’s funding was driven by scientific and technological breakthroughs and focused on evidence-based practice with proven impact for patients. When the opportunity arose to coordinate efforts on finding an AIDS vaccine, The Starr Foundation became a founding member of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI).
Over the years, the Foundation donated more than $42 million to scientific research and to helping those impacted by HIV/AIDS in the United States and around the world, especially in hard-hit areas like sub-Saharan Africa. These efforts included support for organizations like God’s Love We Deliver in New York City, which provides meals to those who are too ill to cook for themselves, and the University of California, San Francisco’s AIDS Research Institute by endowing a C.V. Starr Scholarship Fund for the training of international scientists pursuing AIDS prevention research, as well as support for a multi-foundation consortium housed at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health that focused on saving lives by preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS.
One of the most successful Starr-funded initiatives began with a small seed grant to Dr. Mitchell Besser, an American obstetrician working in South Africa to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS. Dr. Besser saw that even the most effective antiviral medications were of little use if mothers were unwilling to take them or did not understand how or why they should, so he devised and implemented a culturally appropriate health-care model that enlisted former patients—mothers with HIV—to explain to other expectant mothers the risks of HIV infection and how to protect their children. The program, mothers2mothers, was an immediate success, virtually eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS among its clients. What began as a modest effort has today grown into a vast program serving nearly 800,000 people at hundreds of sites in 10 countries across sub-Saharan Africa.