- Published: December 27, 2021
- Updated: December 27, 2021
- University / College: University of Central Florida
- Language: English
- Downloads: 3
The Heart and Stroke Foundation works towards the goal of eliminating stroke and heart diseases, and works on a non-profit basis. In order to achieve these goals, the organization depends on a three-pillared strategy of advocacy, promotion of healthy living styles, and development of the body of research and knowledge associated with heart diseases and stroke. The organization has a set of five core values: respect, excellence, innovation, collaboration, and integrity. These values allow the organization to be recognized and appreciated by both internal and external stakeholders. Excellence comes from the processes and service delivery of the organization. Innovation is at the heart of development of creative and unique ideas, behaviour and approaches, each aiming at overcoming the struggles of heart disease and stroke. The organization collaborates with like-minded organizations working towards similar disease-fighting goals. Integrity empowers the organization into conducting its activities ethically and with complete transparency.
History of the Heart and Stroke Foundation
It was way back in the 1950s when the coming together of several doctors, researchers, native Canadians, and physicians led to the founding of the National Heart Foundation. The organization had three prime objectives – to arrange finances for the purpose of spreading knowledge about heart diseases, to provide more resources to researchers, and bring forth the concerns of heart diseases and stroke. The Ontario Heart Foundation and British Columbia Foundation were established in 1952 and 1955 respectively, and this fuelled the expansion of the National Heart Foundation to Ontario and British Columbia. The development of the Saskatchewan Heart Foundation Quebec Heart Foundation in 1956 led to the further expansion of the National Heart Foundation. The National Heart Foundation quickly expanded to all Canadian states by 1961, and it was renamed as Canadian Heart Foundation by its founders and new members in the same year. This change of name intended to give the organization a national appeal. The Canadian Heart Foundation progressed significantly, and was renamed as the Heart and Stroke Foundation in 1993 once the board members and partners were unanimous on the change. The fact that stroke and heart diseases were not just limited to Canada fuelled this name change. In fact, the organization was struck with the realization that several regions of the world were struggling to fight stroke and heart diseases. This motivated the organization to collaborate with international partners along with the local supporters in order to tackle the global problem of stroke and heart diseases. With a huge base of 13 million donors, in excess of 1, 000 full-time and part-time employees, and 130, 000 volunteers, the organization is a truly international and large scale medical institution.
Purpose and Function
Although the Heart and Stroke Foundation is involved in several activities, it has four prime purposes – to shield population segments that are exposed to heart diseases owing to human activities and immediate environmental factors, to provide financial support to ensuing research on prevention and cure of stroke and heart diseases, to enhance the knowledge of Canadian populations regarding prevention of heart diseases and stroke, and to promote healthy lifestyle practices in Canada. The organization frequently interacts with public health authorities to stress upon the issues pertaining to alleviation of heart disease and stroke threats for vulnerable populations. The fulfillment of this objective also involves standing up for communities that have been exposed to substances that cause heart diseases and filing lawsuits on their behalf. In order to attain the second objective, the organization allies itself with a huge pool of local and international donors, and hence provides financial backing to research in the field of heart diseases and stroke. The organization collaborates with other individual and institutional research centers in order to increase the research funding. The objective of information spreading information is achieved by focusing on the development of strategies to educate communities with insufficient access to data on stroke and heart diseases. The Heart and Stroke Foundation works towards its fourth objective by creating services that motivate people to take to healthy food options, and has also joined with partner corporations that have core knowledge and capabilities in developing healthy food products.
Organizational Framework
The objectives and functions of the Heart and Stroke Foundation necessitate a strong framework involving donors, international partners and local partners. To add to the huge pool of donors, the Heart and Stroke Foundation has regional extensions in the form of territorial and provincial foundations. These regional extensions are what compose the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Not only do these independently working foundations add to the management of the Heart and Stroke Foundation, they also facilitate the organization’s efficient collection of funds from regional donors. The Heart and Stroke Foundation in Canada is enhanced by its 80+ regional offices. These offices are involved with ensuring that the organiation’s services are provided effectively, and conduct assessments of the levels of disease currently present within Canada. In addition, the degree of success of these efforts themselves are measured by the regional offices, thus elevating the importance of these offices in terms of fulfilling the long-term objectives of the Heart and Stroke Foundation. The whole foundation spreads throughout the world with ten smaller internal foundations and 85 other regional offices to its name. Apart from these, the Heart and Stroke Foundation offers positions such as executive director, board of directors and other regional coordinators. These officials conduct and monitor the day-to-day activities of the foundation. Certain periodic meetings and emergency meetings are also called when necessary for all leaders to discuss and make a decision. The executive director usually heads most of the meetings and also visits patients, donors and other important public figures connected to the foundation regularly. The executive director manages all of his many duties by engaging in careful coordination with regional heads and board of directors.
Funding for the Foundation
Throughout the interview, Sam emphasized the importance of funding and why it is a vital aspect of the foundation. Over the years, the Heart and Stroke Foundation has been successful in raising millions to execute its short-term and long-term goals. They have taken the effort to partner the foundation with numerous corporate firms and connecting them in all of their fundraising activities. They help the foundation in sponsoring events, funding health forums and areas of investment, purchasing external defibrillators and other various funding activities. These donations go a long way in helping the organization to fight the terrible war against heart disease and stroke. Of the many world famous events aimed at sponsorship, two events put into place by the Heart and Stroke Foundation in particular, caught the eye of the world. The Becel Ride for Heart and Vino Della Vista proved to be huge successes in raising awareness for the Heart and Stroke foundation and spreading their message worldwide. Being one of the most notable charity events of Canada, the Becel Ride for Heart is a cycling event aimed at promoting awareness. More than 13, 000 cyclists from Canada, USA, Brazil and other countries attend the event, making it a huge success. These cyclists ride under a banner of The Heart and Stroke Foundation and help them in their cause to raise money and awareness. Last time the event was conducted, it raised an amount of 2 million dollars for the foundation. All the money raised is directly put into helping those affected by heart diseases and stroke and goes a long way in providing for them. The other event, called Vino Della Vita, is a wine tasting event where the foundation invites members from Italian corporations and the Italian trade commission to taste and judge wine for them. With an estimated total attendance of 1, 200 delegates over the years, this event is as big a success as the other one. The funding received from the event goes a long way in ensuring that there are enough external defibrillators in public healthcare which can help the people in an emergency. One of the biggest groups providing support to the Heart and Stroke foundation is the SSQ Financial Group. They primarily support the foundation’s move of providing external defibrillators to the community as such. Pfizer, AstraZeneca and other such companies also support the foundation’s collaborative forums which help in bring together professionals in the field of health care. These professionals are then funded so that they can work on a cure or other solutions for heart disease and stroke. One of the biggest contributors to the Heart and Stroke Foundation is the Federated Health Charities, who provide the foundation with research help. They help the foundation to do extensive research on heart disease and stroke. Recently the foundation started several well publicized campaigns in reducing obesity among children. In this campaign, tremendous money was raised and was very helpful in ensuring that the foundation could develop and implement plans that targeted schools and other venues which children often visit. The Canola Council of Canada has also provided strong support to the Heart and Stroke foundation in fighting child obesity. They were involved in organizing a campaign which aimed at spreading awareness against child obesity. The Spark Together for Healthy Kids campaign is aimed at reducing childhood obesity. This helped to create a solid link between various heart diseases and childhood obesity in the minds of the people which helped the cause of the foundations. According to the foundation, many children die every year due to heart disease which was probably brought on due to the consumption of unhealthy and fattening food. The foundation works mainly in Ontario with a mission to educate children about having a healthy lifestyle and eating the right kind of food.
Method of Service Delivery of The Heart and Stroke Foundation
The foundation uses the services of various regional offices to deliver their services to the public. These offices are the front end of the foundation and work closely with the patients and the general public. These offices mainly carry out the job of passing on information about heart disease and stroke to the public and carry out their numerous activities. The Spark Together campaign is one such example of how the regional offices help in the overall working of the foundation. Apart from this, these 85 regional offices play a crucial role in distributing external defibrillators to community healthcare and ultimately decreasing the cost of heart disease treatment.
Pertinent Legislation that Affects The Heart and Stroke Foundation
The framework for the legislation of the organizations that are not controlled by the government work at two different levels. The first is the federal government, which is the one functioning at the central level, and the second one is the local governments that operate at the state levels. The organizations that have been created without the aim of making profit function under the framework dictated by the 2009 Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act. This legislation operates at the central level. The structure and managements of these organizations is set out by the statute. For example, it is mandatory for all non-profit organizations in Canada to have an office that is registered, under section 20 of the act. In addition, in the case of any kind of change in address, the authorities are to notify the registrar. Also, according to the act is that all organizations, once registered, are entitled to all the rights enjoyed by a Canadian citizen. There is another set of laws that these organizations need to follow, particularly at the local level. Under the Ontario Corporations Act, all the non-profit organizations have to get themselves registered at the state level, even if they are already registered at the centre.
Effectiveness of the Service Provided
Needless to say, it is evident that the services provided at The Heart and Stroke Foundation are effective and efficient. The foundation conducts a screening of all the organizations that are provided with funds. It also donates money to organizations working towards the development of a variety of cures for heart diseases. The Heart and Stroke Foundation keeps a strict eye on the honesty of donations received by organizations. Keeping track of the method of provision of the products to the ones who need it, is one of the primary criteria that The Heart and Stroke Foundation considers while judging the companies. One of the primary principles is that they refuse to provide any kind of financial aid to companies who have even the slightest of profit motives in mind. They make it a point to check on the history of the company. In other words, a company with any sort of suspicious record will be refused help by The Heart and Stroke Foundation. An implementation of transparency has been made in the way the resources are managed by the organization, and a record of all the financial transactions with Canada is regularly maintained. According to the rules of the Canadian Revenue Agency, all financial records of every non-profit organization have to be stored in Canada. Books that are maintained beyond the boundaries of the country cannot be accepted. A rough sketch of the utilization of the donor funds is also provided by The Heart and Stroke Foundation. Overall, it is reasonable to assert that The Heart and Stroke Foundation is a truly genuine organization.
Needs For the Future
The foundation needs to go international. On conducting an analysis of the donors of The Heart and Stroke Foundation, it should be noted that a major amount of money is donated by companies with foreign headquarters. This makes it essential for The Heart and Stroke Foundation to expand and increase its territory of operation beyond the national boundaries. This will allow the foundation to help countries that are in dire need of heart treatments, but are not yet suitably equipped. In addition, The Heart and Stroke Foundation would be able to gather useful resources for itself that might not otherwise be available within Canada.