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about defining the field of community work and their own location within it. They
simultaneously propagated the messages that AIDS was a significant area for legitimate concern
and that GMHC was a significant organization in the AIDS world. The group adopted the motto
“First in the Fight Against AIDS,” with its multiple meanings. Leaving research to the scientific
community, GMHC came to define its own mission around the delivery of uncensored
information and daily-living assistance to people living with HIV/AIDS, whose needs they
believed they understood better than anyone else.
Although it faced no explicit pressures to do so, GMHC established itself according to
what its leaders perceived would win favor within the public health sector. “GMHC, originally a
fairly innovative organization, was learning the ropes and would avoid political confrontations.
Just eighteen months after its birth, at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in June 1983, GMHC
impressed the participants with carefully presented documentation, including flowcharts and
formal job descriptions, that, ‘to [GMHC] President [Paul] Popham were the stuff of a sound
organization’” (Perrow and Guillèn 1990:109, quoting Shilts 1987:325). Within its first few
months, GMHC formed close connections with members of the Centers for Disease Control, the
New York City Department of Health, and clinicians who were treating AIDS patients. They
positioned themselves to take responsibility for their communities’ service needs, and not their
political interests, in exchange for support from the public health sector.
In contrast to GMHC’s corporate style, The Network’s meetings were attended by
“everyone doing anything on AIDS” in New York. This included people from GMHC, the CDC,
and the City Department of Health, although, according to one informant, “there were no
Convention