"Question closely what your favourite charity is really doing... It may be little more than a politically correct pressure group which long ago stopped doing what it says on the tin - and does not need your money anyway. One renowned institution now receives 88% of its resources, directly or indirectly, from the taxpayer. So that is the first question you must ask: 'Where does your money come from?' Then you should inquire: 'How much is your chief executive paid?' Investigate what your charity actually does. Does it do what you think it does? How much is spent not on such activities, but on publicity and lobbying? It distresses me to see kind people with modest means handing over money on trust to bodies which are not what they think they are... We do not, in most cases, give our money to be used for company cars, shiny offices, £100,000-a-year salaries...or for what amounts to political propaganda. We give it to help and protect others..."

~ Peter Hitchens [Political commentator]

Stagnation and neglect are rife in all hierarchal organisations that grow out of touch with street level consensus and refuse to adapt or change, becoming stuck in obsolete beliefs, methods and conventions. Businesses fall on their sword or are forced to change their policies when they lose their way or become inert because their customers vote with their feet and go elsewhere. But where charitable public sector organisations like AIDS Inc. are concerned, the funds keep pouring in regardless of their lack of efficiency and ability to grasp the concept that failure must result in dismissal, or that were they in the private sector they would be deluged with corporate manslaughter suits.

Blaming everything on a handful of people at the top, however, no matter how destructive and abusive they've been, misses a critical point. Systems tend to self-perpetuate. Remove one player and the next comes in to ensure business as usual. Replacing those in power won't help if the power structure itself doesn't change. And that means addressing how our own actions maintain this dysfunctional system.

"People with HIV have to take on activism themselves. We have to fight our own battles. HIV/AIDS has become so commercialised and the HIV campaigns are now just about getting money. We need to go back to the drawing board and find strategies that will help us."

~ Rubaramira Ruranga [Positive Nation]

Confined to our distracting, self-absorbed worlds, it is easy to forget that, as public servants, AIDS Inc. are answerable to us, and we each have the right to question their methods. If we don't then they continue to behave corruptably, righteously and with impunity and remain unaccountable to us, their funders. Effectively, we become unwitting collaborators in their misguided and ill-conceived actions - and inaction - that threatens our wellbeing and very existence. Unless we change the system, then we have no right to be shocked by the scandals and failures that collectively reverberate on our health. But how to make our voices heard? And how to gauge if your local AIDS organisation is acting in the interests of community or to a pre-planned and set agenda? Does it:

• Hinder and dither in the way it operates and takes action over vital health issues, waiting until after the horse has bolted instead of acting at the first sign of a problem emerging?

• Dispute or deny the nature or extent of a clear and existing or emerging problem until it is too late to take decisive and effective action?

• Dismiss firsthand experience and anecdotal evidence out of hand and insist instead on the time-consuming accumulation of statistics to prove that a problem exists, then spin the results when they do emerge and evade the issue with PC rhetoric instead of swiftly acting on the findings?

• Place its own interests ahead of the needs of the community it purports to serve (i.e. are most funds lavished on staff salaries, expenses, perks and office upgrades, and only a fraction on public campaigns)?

• Recruit staff members whose behaviour in private conflicts with the health issues they should be confronting?

• Harbour seemingly immortal positions for ancient, arrogant, out-of-touch executive members who refuse to budge and their close-knit, revolving door of cronies who award themselves fat cat salaries at the expense of vital community health initiatives?

• Receive funding from external sources in return for being obliged to promote ethically conflicting interests?

Actions you can take to facilitate change:

• Hold the organisation to account by putting your perceived claims of mismanagement in writing. As public servants they are obliged to respond, and their reply will itself form a part of your evidence against them, but be sure of your case before proceeding.

• A Vision and Mission Statement describes an organisation's objectives and principles. Find out if yours is complying with its enshrined policies.

• Bring the problem into the public arena by writing letters to your regional gay media. If your community newspaper or online forum operator is "in bed" with the organisation and places its ad revenue above public health and freedom of speech, consider contacting the newsdesk of your local mainstream press, television and radio stations instead.

• Write to your local state representative or Member of Parliament outlining your concerns and requesting that the issue be raised at national level.

• Obtain a copy of the accounts published in the organisation's annual report (downloadable from their website) to see how funds are apportioned. If there is an apparent misuse of funds, alert its listed patrons and major donors.

• Notify the regulatory body that polices the standards and practices of the charity or organisation in question. For example, The Charity Commission governs registered charities in the UK.

• Form a grass roots pressure group by informing others of your findings, and petition them to sign their names to a declaration demanding positive change via an HIV sector that is funded and run by the community for the community, devoid of corruptible individuals who collude with outside bodies to promote their interests and agendas.

• Set up your own organisation based on these sound principles and objectives, employing only attuned and passionately-motivated people who remain 100% committed to your compassionate goals.

• Stop donating to their "war chest", particularly if more than 50% of their income is lavished on staff costs and perks and less than 10% on campaigns - unless, of course, you are happy to continue bankrolling them...