ABSTRACT
The San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF) began in 1982 as a small, all-volunteer, grassroots activist, educational, and service organization. SFAF received its first contract from the San Francisco department of public health in October 1982, to provide education and an information and referral service. In 1983 SFAF had secured funding from the state department of health services to provide technical assistance to local groups in Northern California, do some direct education, and run the Northern California AIDS hotline. Although SFAF had been founded by community activists, by 1987 its budget was dependent on donations from middle-and upper-class individuals, precisely those who might cross the bridge to work each day from the wealthy suburban towns of Marin County to the north of San Francisco. Perhaps more telling is that throughout 1993 and 1994, SFAF employees were actively engaged in painful—and to management, shocking—attempts to unionize, highlighting the reality of the distance between employees and management.
