New Goals for Michigan AIDS Fund – An Interview with Glen Jack   

Michigan HIV News Summer 2001 Issue Feature

 

Glen Jack took over the helm of the Michigan AIDS Fund as Executive Director in January, after a long interim led by Chris Ameen.

 

At the time of the interview in April, he had just signed the lease on new space in the Northland Center area of Southfield and had hired two new staff.  Stacey Barbas “who has been very active the HIV/AIDS field” and worked for United Way Community Services of Detroit as the director of information and referral services “is coming on-board as the program officer. Trina Foster is the new program assistant and will be assisting with grant making process and will have general office responsibilities

 

This is not just an office move from Grand Rapids. As of May, the Michigan AIDS Fund (MAF) is breaking away from the Greystone Group, Inc. “We’ll do all our own fundraising efforts,” said Jack. Greystone may continue to do marketing and communication for MAF on a consultant basis.

 

Glen Jack comes to MAF directly from Campfire Boys and Girls where, for the past year he was executive director. Previously he was with the United Way as a fundraiser and fund distribution staff for over fifteen years. He worked for five different United Ways starting in Alexandria, VA. He then moved to Savannah GA, and back to Michigan to work in Grand Haven, Livingston Co. and Grand Rapids.

 

Jack has a Bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Michigan, with Masters work in public administration. “I got a couple of internships in D.C. and never looked back,” he said.

 

Jack’s involvement in HIV/AIDS began in Georgia in the early 90’s, when he was with the United Way. “The Savannah community was struggling in terms of having an AIDS Coalition.” The AIDS Coalition brought together the providers to talk about commonalities in service delivery and look at ways to bring more resources into the community. Savannah is on the “95 corridor” so there is a heavy drug trade as well as a significant gay population connected to the arts community, Jack said. “I was very active in helping pull that group together and getting them organized. One of the biggest accomplishments we had was getting the social security administration to recognize that it was an issue for them too.”

 

The New ED’s Goals for MAF

 

 

Having just returned from a national conference for AIDS funding organizations, Jack had an interesting perspective. Out of the 29 AIDS funds around the country (only two statewide), MAF is one of the larger ones, generating 1.3 million in funds last year. “It amazed me how people were impressed with that,” said Jack. “It seems nominal to me; its seems like we should be raising a heck of a lot more,” he said reflectively, “but I’m coming from United Ways that would raise 17 million dollars. ...I realize that this is just one issue, but it’s the issue of our lifetime in my mind. So, one of our goals would be to see how large we can make that pot of money that we are trying to raise every year.

 

“We get very generous support from foundations throughout the state, but not all of them.” One of the original grantors, Kellogg Foundation stopped supporting MAF when it cut back on programs, due to their own revenue loss.

 

The other goal, he said, is making the best use of the funds raised.  “Because we are limited in the funds we do raise, we need to make sure we are really focused on the best benefit of where they go. This year we had almost 1.7 million in request for funds.” Since MAF doesn’t have sufficient funds to meet these requests, it makes the decision process more difficult. Jack said they have to decide what kinds of projects they want to fund.

 

“I think what we need to do is make sure there is more definition to that, so that when people are applying for funds they are not shooting in the dark. We should be able to be more specific about what we would be most willing to fund.

 

“I think it also helps us raise money. Because then you can tell potential donors, ‘these are the types of things that we fund.’”

 

Many funders are also concerned about administrative overhead. Jack said the overhead for MAF is going to drop, perhaps not this year. It has taken a while to get the new office set up and to make the transition to the three-person staff in Southfield. “Instead of having six or seven hands touch MAF, which they did at Greystone, we are going down to three. Consulting fees add to cost and overhead. In a year or two, we should see what we are spending to get the job done lowered.”

 

Also, MAF will be phasing out contractors for technical assistance and capacity building for agencies around the state. The Southfield staff will be taking over those responsibilities.

 

What about the attention that was given to the rest of the state? Will this move to southeast Michigan, with staff located there and loss of the statewide consultants diminish the statewide attention from MAF? Jack says, no.

 

“We are going to become involved in the regional planning councils throughout the state. One of us will be attending those meetings so we become increasingly aware of what the issues are…outside of the epi-center of Detroit.”

 

Having lived in several areas of the state places Jack in a good position to understand the complexity of the statewide issues. While he grew up in the Detroit area, and went to school in Ann Arbor, he said most of his professional contacts are on the west side of the state.

 

The new Chair of the MAF Board, Leonard W. Smith, has strong contacts in the Detroit area, said Jack. Smith took over the Chair at the end of 2000 after Glenn Kossick stepped down. Smith is a retiree of the Skillman Foundation, and now runs a small family foundation.

 

Jack said a new fundraising focus will be trying to attract major individual contributions from the gay and lesbian community, which he pointed out, has been an untapped resource for potentially large funds. “We know there’s money in the community that should have a natural interest, but for some reason…the big donors aren’t coming to the plate.”

 

There is a lot that is new about MAF. And there is much interest from around the state to see if the new ship and crew will ride the waves of what may prove to be rough weather ahead for AIDS fundraising.

 

You may now reach the Michigan AIDS Fund at (248) 395-3244. They are located at 21700 Northwestern Highway, Suite 1150, in Southfield.