Complacency kills.

Nearly two decades into the AIDS epidemic, the term "AIDS complacency" can be heard far and wide and perhaps nowhere more loudly than in the offices of nonprofit development directors, who are watching their fund-raising dollars drop dramatically. One of the latest organizations to be hit is the Ryan White Foundation. Named after an Indiana boy who contracted HIV through a blood transfusion, the foundation once raised $250,000 a year. Now it is down to its last $1,000, has dismissed its staff, and the mail has been piling up outside its door. Jeanne White-Ginder, Ryan's mother and the foundation's founder, said the agency has fallen into the red because of decreased interest in AIDS. "It's really been a hard time for the AIDS community," White-Ginder said. "People are under the misconception that the disease is over."

Meanwhile, the San Francisco chapter of the Names Project, the creators and keepers of the AIDS memorial quilt, has been fortunate to have an anonymous person donate the funds necessary for the organization to pay its rent through August in its Castro district storefront as the group looks for a less-expensive home. The storefront carries emotional resonance with many because it was the original home of the quilt. But Marissa Winstanley, chapter and international relations coordinator for the Names Project Foundation, is quick to underscore that the national organization is not closing down and is doing well.