San Francisco’s AIDS Emergency Fund hires first executive director

The former all-volunteer AIDS Emergency Fund in San Francisco, an agency that provides emergency financial support for people seeking housing or medical assistance, has hired its first executive director. Mike Smith, who cofounded the Names Project in 1987 and has spent the last four years as director of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center of Colorado in Denver, was hired as the agency's first director in early October. His annual salary is $90,000 per year. The salary will come primarily from the money spent by the organization each year on part-time consultants. "My job here is to professionalize the organization," Smith, 42, told the Bay Area Reporter. The fund has already experienced a 10% increase in clients in 2002, up from a total 5% increase in all of 2001. The organization could run a year-end deficit of about $600,000 without significant increases in donations.