June 30 marked the end date for a nearly $3 million grant by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to the Alabama-based Birmingham AIDS Outreach (BAO), which has ties to a local K-12 charter school, to prevent the spread of STDs among "young transgender people of color" and black men who have sex with men (MSM).
This grant is just one of many the feds have granted to BAO in recent years. However, this one stands out due to the particularity of its intended recipients.
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The grant’s description states its purpose is to diagnose, treat and prevent HIV among black MSM.
Part of the grant’s purpose is to provide thousands of free condoms by “increasing availability of condoms (both male and female condoms) by offering free condoms to 100% of black MSM in the program with HIV (including both newly and previously diagnosed) and 100% of black MSM in the program at risk for acquiring HIV, equal to 10,000 number of condoms distributed per year.”
BAO has two other grants that will be completed in 2027: a $1 million grant for drug abuse treatment and HIV prevention, and another for $2 million to prevent STD transmission amongst transgender youth as young as 13.
“Young transgender (YTG) people of color living in the US south represent the group of people at highest risk for HIV acquisition,” one grant description reads. “Extant research also illustrates that prep use in the South is extremely low among YTG persons of color. Therefore, this project, transgender comprehensive high impact prevention project (t-chip), aims to develop a coordinated community response to end the HIV epidemic aligned with a status neutral approach to address the disproportionately high HIV incidence rate among YTG persons of color, ages 13-34, and their partners.”
According to its IRS filings, BAO is a registered 501 (c) (3) nonprofit with reported revenue of $14.8 million in fiscal year 2024. The organization lists its expenses at $13.7 million, which includes the $136,252 salary of the only paid BAO employee listed on IRS forms, Karen Musgrove.
Musgrove, an adjunct professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, is also the CEO of the Magic City Acceptance Academy (MCAA) and the Magic City Wellness Center (MCWC). MCAA is an LGBTQ-affirming charter school in Birmingham, while MCWC is an LGBTQ medical wellness center. In 2025, MCAA received roughly $3.38 million in State funding and $337,000 in federal funding.
For FY2024, $13.35 million of BAO’s revenue came from grants and contributions. According to federal records, BAO received $3.7 million per year from 2023 to 2025, all of which came through HHS.
The most recent records for State funding come from FY2025. Those records show the State doled out nearly $1.1 million in funding. Those also came from grants from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA), and the Alabama Department of Public Health.
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