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Gensler’s Dining by Design lounge, 2017. Photography by Alan Barry.
Turning 40 is an occasion to celebrate past accomplishments—and, perhaps more importantly, to set your future agenda. That’s what DIFFA: Design Industries Foundation has been doing as it transitions into a fifth decade. “Every responsible not-for-profit should constantly reevaluate its mission to ensure alignment with its community’s needs,” says Dawn Roberson, DIFFA’s executive director since 2018. As such, the foundation, which just rolled out a new name this year, not only continues its essential work of granting funds to organizations that provide assistance and healthcare access to those impacted by HIV/AIDS but has also been pursuing an expanded scope: addressing the broader challenges of food and housing insecurity and the mental-health issues that underserved populaces face—and that increase the likeliness of diagnosis. The reality is sobering: In the U.S., living with HIV/AIDS poses real risks—of becoming unhoused, of developing a mental-health condition, of less engagement with prevention. “When people lack the proper resources, they’re not able to get tested or treated,” Roberson explains. “So, attacking the problem at the source ensures more people are educated and have treatment access.”
Gensler and Herman Miller’s Dining by Design table, 2014, featuring photomurals from Braden Summers’s All Love Is Equal series. Photography by Eric Laignel.
The Evolution of DIFFA’s Mission
Gensler’s branding for the 40th anniversary.
Scientific advances over the decades have made the disease both easily preventable and manageable, but that certainly wasn’t the case in 1984 when DIFFA was founded, out of real desperation. At the time, many in the design world were losing friends, colleagues, and loved ones to AIDS, which was largely being ignored by the government and even the private sector. Professionals from various creative fields, from fashion to interiors, banded together to assist vulnerable community members who weren’t getting help—making sure they could pay bills, get to doctor appointments, and much more.
Since then, DIFFA has granted over $57 million to hundreds of entities that bolster under-resourced populations throughout the country; beneficiaries include Alpha Workshops, God’s Love We Deliver (GLWD), Visual AIDS for the Arts, and Housing Works. An important distinction is that DIFFA provides unrestricted grants, allowing flexible spending so agencies are empowered to use the money in a way that is most effective for them. “We can help keep the lights on, we can help them get new equipment, we can help pay their staff, we can help with the basic office necessities—basically, whatever they need to keep running, which is crucial,” Roberson says.
Gensler-designed posters announcing DIFFA’s 40th anniversary gala in New York, 2024. Photography by Eric Laignel.
DIFFA Boasts Strong Leadership
Strong leadership and an army of dedicated volunteers have been essential to the long-term success of the organization, which currently hosts chapters in four cities: Chicago, Dallas, New York, and San Francisco. During a recent 40th-anniversary benefit bash, former executive director David Sheppard lauded the contributions of design-industry heavy-weights who’ve guided DIFFA over the years, including chair emeriti Cindy Allen, this magazine’s editor in chief, and architect and Rockwell Group founder David Rockwell. “Without David, DIFFA’s doors would have closed after the 2008 crash,” Sheppard notes. “And companies that said ‘no’ to me for decades said ‘yes’ the minute Cindy became chairman.”
Allen, who served in that role from 2012 through 2023, when she handed the reins to Thomas Polucci, HOK’s director of interiors and workplace design, was instrumental in galvanizing the commercial side of the profession for donations, fundraising events like Dining by Design (rebranded in 2022 as DIFFA by Design), and programs such as Specify with Care, whereby affiliates such as Maya Romanoff and Wolf-Gordon donate a percentage of profits to the cause. During her tenure, Allen rallied the support of design firms including Gensler and M Moser Associates and brands ranging from Shaw and Steelcase. “From Giants of Design firms to giant manufacturers, our industry friends really stepped up to the plate to become valiant supporters,” Allen says. “We’ve come full circle, from our industry being majorly impacted by HIV/AIDS to our industry having a major impact.”
Executive director Dawn Roberson with board chair emeriti David Rockwell and Cindy Allen Allen in 2022. Photography by Marion Curtis/Starpix.
For Rockwell, a Hall of Fame icon and inductee whose firm is also celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, the decision to join DIFFA in 1994 was extremely personal. “I had just lost my brother Rick to AIDS and was in the throes of grief,” he recalls. “It was so cathartic to be in a community with designers and artists who were as passionate as I was about trying to help save lives in any way we could; being able to act when I felt powerless was so important. It’s been a gift to watch DIFFA grow and now deliver on this new mission of addressing the most pressing societal challenges, like housing and mental health.” These are indeed complex issues, but ones our industry remains well positioned to solve, especially when we join forces to supercharge our strategic and creative capabilities.
Explore DIFFA’s Outreach and Initiatives Over The Years
Neon signage at Dining by Design, 2015.
A 2016 Dining by Design installation by the late Ali Tayar of Parallel Design, produced by SilverLining. Photography by Garrett Rowland.
Gensler’s Dining by Design lounge, 2017. Photography by Alan Barry.
A 2019 program.
A Tayar sketch for a 2014 Dining by Design installation with Wolf-Gordon.
The Dining by Design program, 2018.
The 2023 program from the rebranded DIFFA by Design.
Roche Bobois’s installation, 2017, with a chandelier by Gensler.
Discover DIFFA’s Grantees + Beneficiaries
The logo of DIFFA grantee God’s Love We Deliver (GLWD).
Designer Bill Bouchey’s donor pinboard for Idea Lab 2012: Carpet Art, a DIFFA benefit held at Interface New York. Photography by Keith Claytor/Timefrozen Photography.
A God’s Love We Deliver client. Photography by Rommel Demano.
The organization serves 17,000 New Yorkers in need. Photography by Lydia Lee.
Clients receive medically tailored, home-delivered meals. Photography by Lydia Lee.
GLWD clients also receive nutrition counseling. Photography by Rommel Demano.
Visual AIDS project director Shirlene Cooper with a member of its Women’s Empowerment Art Therapy Workshops, a DIFFA grant recipient that supports artists living with HIV, at the “Love Positive Women” exhibition at MoMA PS1. Photography by Jess Saldaña.
Housing Works, a DIFFA beneficiary, at the 2023 Queer Liberation March in New York.
The Après Ski fundraiser invite designed by Gensler, 2023.