Lessons learned: Building the capacity of community-based organizations and health departments implementing HIV interventions in African American communities

Even with the medicalization of HIV/AIDS, bringing programs and services into communities requires effective programs and service delivery systems. Developing and maintaining the capacities of these programs are critical. Because capacity building has become such an important part of HIV prevention work, greater attention must be given to the best practices in this area. In this article, the best practices and lessons learned from one national capacity building initiative are presented. Using a nonexperimental approach, the authors present 4 years of capacity building assistance service provision in the field of HIV prevention.