Mark Ishaug
Position: The new president and chief executive of AIDS United, a District-based national policy and grantmaking organization that seeks to end AIDS in America.
After witnessing the devastating effects of AIDS on friends and people he knew, Ishaug knew he wanted to contribute to ending the disease — he just wasn’t sure how. It wasn’t until the owner of a restaurant he worked in made a call to the AIDS Foundation of Chicago on his behalf that Ishaug found his place in the movement. He rose through the ranks to lead the organization and after 20 years decided to take on a leadership role in the District that he believes will “benefit a bigger and broader arena.”
How did the AIDS Foundation grow under your leadership?
We went from a $7 million organization to a $22 million organization, 20 staff to 70 staff, 20 board members to 40 board members. The growth was enormous. We were serving more people and expanding programs statewide. While I feel entrepreneurial and like to participate in growing an organization, it wasn’t growth for growth’s sake. The growth was necessary because of the growth of the epidemic.
What was the key to meeting the growing need?
I’m most proud of diversifying our funding beyond HIV-specific funding. We used our core competencies in contract management, financial management, coordination and service planning to expand the reach of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago to serve individuals with other chronic conditions including but not limited to HIV.
You mentioned that one of your strengths is coalition building. What are the challenges to building a network?
Building coalitions is among the hardest things to be done. You have to recognize individual and organizational self-interest, and people and institutions jockeying for position and money. It’s recognizing where the intersections are of mutual benefits and interest and trying to align all these interests for the greater good and the good of the participants. It’s an art and science.
What are the keys to galvanizing people around those mutually beneficial interests?
You have to recognize the value that everyone brings to the coalition and hold people accounting. It’s also about success. Coalitions are successful when they are successful. That sounds like gibberish but you have to have victories.
Any remarkable victories?
For 10 years we fought for syringe access to allow pharmacies to sell syringes without a prescription. The science was incontrovertible. Getting clean needles to people with or at risk of HIV could stop the spread of the epidemic without increasing drug use. It took us 10 years and a broad, diverse coalition to do this. For me, success in a coalition is having baby wins along the way and never loosing your vision and never taking your eye off the prize.
If you could do that 10-year battle over again, what would you have done better?
We might’ve started the diverse coalition a little earlier. It’s hard to say though because the times were so different. It was a time when many people wanted to quarantine people with HIV. It was a time of deep-seated fear. To do anything progressive then was really hard.
— Interview with Vanessa Small
See Monday’s Washington Post Business pages for Ishaug’s “New at the Top” profile. Send nominations for others to newatthetop@washpost.com.
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