American Heart Association Strategic Planning and Stakeholder Roles
This paper examines the American Heart Association (AHA) as a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating heart disease and stroke in the United States. It profiles the AHA's history, mission, and key stakeholders — donors, researchers, and volunteers — along with its short-, mid-, and long-term goals. The paper then argues for a volunteer stakeholder perspective, explaining how volunteer-gathered community intelligence can shape and improve the AHA's strategic planning process through brainstorming, visual mapping, and needs analysis. Finally, three strategic goals are recommended — focusing on health clubs and associations, centering equity in operations, and broadening commitment to holistic well-being — each aimed at producing measurable positive social change.
- Organization Overview and Mission: AHA's history, structure, and mission statement
- Stakeholders and Their Roles: Roles of donors, researchers, and volunteers
- Short-, Mid-, and Long-Term Organizational Goals: Tiered AHA goals across three time horizons
- Volunteer Stakeholder Perspective and Personal Motivation: Author's personal and professional motivation for volunteering
- Evaluating and Revising the Strategic Planning Process: Three tools volunteers use to improve strategic planning
- Three Strategic Goals for Positive Social Change: Health clubs, equity, and holistic well-being recommendations
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What makes this paper effective
- Clearly connects the student's personal and professional motivation to a specific volunteer stakeholder role, giving the analysis an grounded, first-person perspective that is well-supported by cited evidence.
- Moves logically from organizational description to stakeholder analysis to concrete strategic recommendations, maintaining a coherent through-line about equity and community engagement.
- Supports practical recommendations — brainstorming, visual mapping, and needs analysis — with academic sources such as Rehnborg & Moore (2012) and Scheier (1975), demonstrating awareness of the volunteer management literature.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates stakeholder analysis as an academic technique, identifying and distinguishing among donors, researchers, and volunteers, then situating the author within that framework to argue for how each type of stakeholder shapes organizational strategy. This approach — grounding normative recommendations in a structured stakeholder map — is a standard method in nonprofit management and business-and-society scholarship.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with an organizational profile and mission statement, followed by a stakeholder overview and a tiered goal framework (short, mid, and long term). It then shifts to a first-person section explaining the author's volunteer role and personal motivation. The next section addresses strategic planning revision methods with three concrete planning tools. The paper concludes with three recommended strategic goals tied to social change. Each section responds directly to a distinct prompt question, giving the paper a clear, assignment-driven structure typical of undergraduate nonprofit management coursework.
Organization Overview and Mission
The American Heart Association (AHA) is the oldest and most robust organization in the United States focused on fighting stroke and heart disease. It was founded in 1924 by six cardiologists and now counts over 22.5 million supporters and volunteers ("About Us," 2020). The organization funds research, lobbies for improved public health policies, and provides the public with information needed to save lives. Shared interest in cardiovascular health brings together over 33 million volunteers and more than 3,400 staff members ("About Us," 2020).
In 1975, the AHA relocated its headquarters from New York to Dallas, Texas, seeking a more central location for ease of reach and coordination. The American Stroke Association, an offshoot of the AHA, was created in 1997 to harmonize the organization's stroke-related activities. Together, these bodies offer the public information relating to health status, lead CPR training initiatives, and provide guidance on healthy lifestyles. Healthcare professionals also benefit from information the organization disseminates in support of better patient care. The AHA educates other professionals on the importance of a concerted community effort for healthier localities.
Mission: To be a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives.
Stakeholders and Their Roles
The stakeholders of the American Heart Association include donors, volunteers, and researchers, each playing a distinct and critical role in advancing the organization's mission.
Researchers are indispensable to the AHA. They serve as the source of new knowledge relating to cardiovascular health. The AHA's research program is guided by twelve tenets crafted by a board constituted of key organizational stakeholders. Researchers are charged with the responsibility of sharing their findings for the improvement of AHA services and societal well-being.
The AHA depends significantly on donors. Donors extend their assistance in strengthening the organization's ability to manage its funds effectively. Allowing donors to have a degree of control over resources gives them both power and investment in the mission, enabling them to influence organizational decisions in meaningful ways.
Volunteers contribute their talent and time to promote a world free from stroke and heart disease. Volunteer teams ensure that the AHA's work remains focused on meeting community needs and that the organization remains visible enough to attract ongoing support from government and the general public. Volunteers are also central to effective fundraising efforts.
References
"About Us." (2020). The American Heart Association. Retrieved from https://www.heart.org/en/about-us
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Barr, D. A. (2016). Geography as disparity: The shifting burden of heart disease.
Havranek, E. P., Mujahid, M. S., Barr, D. A., Blair, I. V., Cohen, M. S., Cruz-Flores, S., ... & Rosal, M. (2015). Social determinants of risk and outcomes for cardiovascular disease: A scientific statement from the American Heart Association. Circulation, 132(9), 873–898.
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Lopez-Jimenez, F. (2012, October). The pursuit of ideal cardiovascular health: An individual and societal challenge. In Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Vol. 87, No. 10, pp. 929–931). Elsevier.
Mozaffarian, D., Benjamin, E. J., Go, A. S., Arnett, D. K., Blaha, M. J., Cushman, M., ... & Howard, V. J. (2016). Heart disease and stroke statistics — 2016 update: A report from the American Heart Association. Circulation, 133(4), 447–454.
Rehnborg, S. J., & Moore, M. (2012). Maximizing volunteer engagement. In The volunteer management handbook: Leadership strategies for success (2nd ed., pp. 103–124). John Wiley and Sons.
Scheier, I. (1975, Winter). Need-overlap analysis in helping (NOAH) for organized volunteer programs. In Synergist. Washington, D.C.: ACTION.
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