Living our values: A new strategic plan for San Francisco AIDS Foundation

Our mission statement defines how we do the work. Our mission is to promote health, wellness and social justice for communities most impacted by HIV through sexual health and substance use services, advocacy and community partnerships.

Building off of a 37-year legacy, our work to end the AIDS epidemic will continue. A slightly new perspective we’ll take in the coming years is to address all sexual health and substance use disparities for people who are either living with HIV or at risk for HIV. We want to ensure that our community has access to the resources, services, information and support we need to maintain our sexual health and solve problems related to substance use.

The values of our organization help shape our approach—in other words, how we set out to achieve our vision and goals. They are the guideposts we will use to show up for the communities we serve.

In the coming years, we will be guided by the values of justice, dignity, courage, leadership and excellence.

In our new strategic plan, we’re making it clear that we’re committed to racial justice and centering people of color in our work. Being committed to racial justice means interrupting oppression and proactively reinforcing policies, practices, attitudes and actions that lead to equitable power, access, opportunities, treatment and health outcomes for everyone.

We know that racial disparities—the result of institutional and structural oppressions—are present in HIV incidence and prevalence rates, access to health care and more. That’s why racial justice shows up across all parts of our plan: We are taking steps to create safe spaces for clients of color, retain more staff of color and create a racially just workplace.

These are not simply words on paper. We are committed to doing the difficult work within our organization to transform our relationships to people of color—including our clients and staff.

To advance our vision and mission, our organization will focus on four main priorities:

1. Maintain, expand and pilot HIV, hepatitis C, and STI prevention and treatment, and other sexual health services to ensure equitable access and use by people of color.
2. Maintain and expand substance use services syringe access and overdose prevention efforts including establishing safer injection sites.
3. In partnership, create a comprehensive network of health and wellness services for people over age 50 who are living with HIV.
4. Strengthen organizational excellence with a focus on living our values, including a commitment to racial justice.

To accomplish our strategic priorities and have the greatest impact, we use three mutually-reinforcing core strategies.

1. Provision of integrated sexual health and substance use services.
2. Advocacy, which includes policy and system-fix work, public education, capacity-building and research.
3. Building and strengthening community partnerships.

Our strategic plan will have the following impact on San Francisco.

1. People living with HIV will have equal rates of viral suppression regardless of race and ethnicity.
2. Fewer than 100 people living in San Francisco will newly acquire HIV in 2024.
3. 90% fewer people living with HIV will have hepatitis C because of increased awareness, testing and treatment.
4. 10,000 fewer people will die from drug overdose over 5 years because of overdose prevention efforts including safe injection services.
5. 50% fewer long-term survivors will experience isolation, poor physical health or unmet mental health needs.