WHAT DRIVES US - American Heart Association

Debra Lockwood, CPA
Chairman of the Board
From the Chairman of the Board and President
This year we continued to drive toward our 2020 goal of improving the
cardiovascular health of all Americans by 20 percent and reducing
cardiovascular and stroke deaths by 20 percent. Achieving that means
we’ll save nearly 185 lives a day.
To succeed, we must strengthen relationships with volunteers, staff and
organizations with similar goals. That’s why, in 2011, we introduced a
robust strategy to build a healthier future powered by volunteers. Key
aspects are to more fully embrace volunteerism, organize around issues
rather than events or functions, strengthen the volunteer-staff partnership,
and better communicate how we help every American.
The rollout of the My Heart. My Life. platform, which focuses on physical
activity and diet, was another step forward. This healthy living platform
includes major collaborative campaigns highlighting nutrition, including
Teaching Gardens for schoolchildren.
To serve professionals, we published a joint statement with the American
Cancer Society and American Diabetes Association noting our common
commitment to prevention. The three organizations also launched
The Guideline Advantage , a program to help primary care providers
practice evidence-based prevention in an outpatient setting. We issued
several presidential advisories, including one that recommended a sodium
goal of no more than 1,500 milligrams a day for all Americans.
We also announced the launch of our new Open-Access Journal
of the American Heart Association and our plan to begin hospital
certification programs for cardiac disease and stroke.
Finally, this year —our first with a neurologist as president — we launched
major stroke-related initiatives. They included expanding the Get With The
Guidelines ® -Stroke program, Target: Stroke SM , and Primary and
Comprehensive Stroke Center Certification.
The leaders of the American Heart Association/American Stroke
Association and American Academy of Neurology held their first summit
to discuss further collaboration. We also began re-evaluating American
Stroke Association programs to sharpen messages about prevention and
improving brain health.
Our drive to save lives continues to gain momentum.
Debra Lockwood
Chairman of the Board
Ralph Sacco
President
Ralph Sacco, M.S., M.D., FAHA
President
Nancy A. Brown
Chief Executive Officer
From the CEO
“Our people are our greatest resource” is a truism in for-profit business.
For a voluntary health organization like the American Heart Association,
our people are even more. They are our lifeblood. They are everything.
Volunteers advocate for change, provide expert scientific guidance,
educate community members, develop strategies and plans, and
lead our community fundraising efforts. And they do all of this while
generously donating their time, talent and effort.
Our volunteers are driven by a shared passion: They want to save lives
and improve health by stopping heart disease and stroke. What drives
them is what drives our whole organization.
This fiscal year we launched a vital initiative with enormous potential —
our Vision for Volunteerism. The goal is to create more opportunities
for volunteer service, to galvanize more people from initial interest
to passionate engagement, and to provide more opportunities for
volunteers based on their specific interests and passions. In the spring
of 2011, we held two volunteer summits to help leaders from across
the country look at the health, revenue and volunteer needs of their
communities and develop plans based on those needs.
Volunteers are the very fabric of our culture at the American Heart
Association, and we believe they can become even more instrumental to
our mission. The volunteer experience can become even richer and more
fulfilling, and volunteers’ energy and enthusiasm can fuel our progress in
the fight against cardiovascular diseases.
In the years ahead, reaching our aggressive 2020 Impact Goal will
depend on increasing the number of volunteers, leveraging their talents
and ensuring that all of our volunteers have a meaningful, empowering
experience. Through our Vision for Volunteerism, we have begun to do
that, and we are seeing results.
When we achieve our goal, the credit will rightly go to our volunteers.
Their drive is what drives all that we achieve.
Nancy A. Brown
Chief Executive Officer
1