Elton John Foundation:COVID-19 Emergency Fund

Overview

Offers grants for solutions that have strong potential to address specific challenges that have arisen for people already living with or at severe risk of HIV/AIDS and who are now at heightened risk as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Such solutions should aim to demonstrably mitigate the threat of COVID-19 on maintaining current levels of access or increasing access to HIV-related prevention, testing, care and treatment adherence services.

Nature of Solutions Funded

The Elton John AIDS Foundation’s COVID-19 Emergency Fund is looking to support community-based organisations to implement lifesaving interventions to help mitigate adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on HIV response efforts for key population communities around the world.

The Fund is looking for applications from local community-based organisations, which have been awarded an Elton John AIDS Foundation grant since January 2017, for solutions lasting up to six months. The Fund is looking for proposed solutions in the range of $10,000-$50,000. Examples of approaches funded through COVID-19 Emergency Fund grants include:

Approaches that allow the safe continuation of existing key HIV services for key populations in view of COVID-19 pandemic-related challenges, e.g.,

• Transitioning from face-to-face models of care, for example to home-based or virtual services, that increase the capacity of community-based organisations (including in collaboration with healthcare settings) to offer HIV prevention (e.g. PrEP, syringe and needle programmes), testing (e.g. self-testing), and treatment services to key populations;
• Pandemic-related personal protective equipment (e.g. face masks) to keep frontline staff (including community-based activists) and community-members safe in accessing key HIV-related services;
• Decentralisation of HIV prevention, testing, and treatment service provision, e.g. HIV care in community, mobile or other (non-HIV) healthcare settings (e.g. pharmacy, primary care)
• Mechanisms for community feedback to troubleshoot and address problems with accessing key HIV services as a result of pandemic-related challenges.

The provision of new HIV-related services for key populations to respond to COVID-19 pandemic-related challenges, e.g.,

• Proactive provision of new key population-specific health and harm reduction HIV services, including prevention, testing and treatment, in feasible settings to respond to COVID-19 pandemic-related challenges; o Provision of adherence support interventions, including reminders and community ART provision;
• Short term payments to vital new staff or volunteers to support new HIV-related interventions that respond to COVID-19 pandemic-related challenges;
• Special strategies for particularly hard-to-reach and/or very vulnerable individuals from key population groups in need of vital services amid COVID-19 related challenges.

The above are examples, and they also welcome other potential innovative solutions that take under 6 months to implement and achieve the Fund’s objectives.

Full guidelines are available here