In 2024, the Match Group dating apps BLK, Chispa and Archer—which are aimed at the Black, Latino and gay/bisexual male communities, respectively—partnered with the Together TakeMeHome initiative to get free HIV self-testing kits into households most affected by the HIV epidemic (including Black and Latino households in high HIV incidence areas, such as the Deep South). The apps sent push notifications offering delivery of free at-home tests, resulting in more than 875 orders from BLK, more than 900 from Chispa and an unconfirmed number from Archer.

 

Match Group’s undertaking was driven by its involvement in U.S. Business Action to End HIV (USBAEH), a public health/private sector partnership started in 2022 within Health Action Alliance, a broader such partnership. The Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS urged the Department of Health and Human Services to in-crease private sector involvement in the federal Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative, launched by the first Trump administration (and which HIV advocates hope will continue). In response, the HIV drugmaker ViiV gave USBAEH seed money.

 

USBAEH has since grown to include 68 official members (including ViiV, HIV drugmaker Gilead Sciences, CVS, Walgreens, Uber, Walmart and Chevron) and roughly 500 companies with a lower threshold involvement, such as sharing USBAEH educational materials about HIV treatment and prevention with their employees.

 

However, as people living with HIV and their allies and service providers face potentially devastating cuts to HIV programs by new Trump administration advisers and a solidly GOP-led Congress, it’s an open question whether USBAEH—with its collective corporate power and influence—can stave off such losses.