American Heart Association

The American Heart Association’s mission is to be a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives. The organization’s goal is: Every person deserves the opportunity for a full, healthy life. As champions for health equity, by 2024, the American Heart Association will advance cardiovascular health for all, including identifying and removing barriers to health care access and quality. The Association is the nation's oldest, largest voluntary organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke, powered by over 32 million volunteers and supporters. The AHA is a leading funder and curator of heart and brain research; fights for public health policies; provides lifesaving tools and information; and creates science-based treatment guidelines to help ensure quality health care.

Our work toward our mission focuses sharply on equitable health for all people. We pursue our missio

Goal One: Funding research into heart disease and stroke, including a $100 million investment in new research programs and grants focused on science-based solutions to health inequities and structural racism.

Goal Two: Improving equitable health of communities nationwide by working to change policies and systems and funding organizations that can drive change from within their own communities.

Goal Three: Improving access to and the quality of health care across the nation, including increased focus on blood pressure control, under-resourced populations and those in rural communities.

The American Heart Association has made several investments to grow our current and future leaders. Our current leaders participated in McKinsey & Company’s Black, Latinx and Asian Leadership Academies. And to support employees’ continual growth and to increase the number of well-rounded leaders in our talent pipeline, we provide all employees – at no cost – opportunities to engage in leadership development and mentorship programs. We offer over 100,000 resources to staff from recognized learning institutions including Harvard, MIT, CCL, Gap International and Allstate Foundation Nonprofit Leadership Center. We provide targeted leadership development for new and tenured hiring managers and fundraisers. We offer all employees development in the areas of allyship, anti-racism, cultural competency, unconscious bias and equity. Developing diverse employees is a key to our successful succession planning and retention.

We adapted to the continually changing world in the COVID-19 pandemic, finding new ways to reach patients, work in communities, advance scientific research, collaborate with hospitals, hold scientific meetings, raise funds and more. We restructured our operation to ensure even more efficiencies, cost-savings and adaptability. We adjusted our organization-wide goal to reflect urgent health needs, placing a stronger emphasis on equitable health for all. Health equity, long a major aspect of our work, became much more urgent. The pandemic’s disproportionate impact on the health and finances of Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and Asian people further exacerbated existing health disparities. We accompanied our goal with 10 bold actions to address barriers to health caused by social factors and structural racism. These actions include work in scientific research, community programs and a nationwide initiative to improve blood pressure control and heart health among people of color. Because heart disease patients and people with related conditions are susceptible to worse outcomes from the coronavirus, our organization’s trusted, science-based health information is even more important. And so we shifted to a digital-first approach to better engage people with this valuable information. As a leading science authority, we made critical adjustments with far-reaching impact. For example, we developed new patient registries to help researchers figure out exactly how COVID-19 affects heart disease patients, stroke survivors and young athletes’ hearts. The pandemic amplified the need of our work advocating for public health policies at national, state and local levels. We’ve focused on helping families, communities and officials navigate the pandemic and promote good health. Our varied work within communities took on new importance. For example, we’ve invested $4.5 million into 33 community-based groups supporting people who were struggling during the pandemic.