Annual Reports

Dear Friends of Children’s HeartLink,

This year, our 40th anniversary has provided the opportunity to reflect on how far we’ve come and to redouble our commitment to healing children’s hearts worldwide. When Children’s HeartLink began in 1969, cardiac surgery was scarcely out of its infancy. Today, our volunteer medical teams and partner hospitals have performed thousands of surgeries that would have been inconceivable both in number and complexity when we first began. Forty years later, our increased focus on sustainability has extended our work well beyond the operating room to encompass post-operative care, heart disease prevention, personnel retention and site strategic planning.

The economic environment is an ongoing challenge. But those same challenges make the needs we serve worldwide that much greater. Congenital heart disease is the most common birth defect across the globe. This year alone, up to 15 million children will face death, shortened lifespans or physical limitations, not for a lack of knowledge, but for a lack of access to the cardiac care they need.

Even in the midst of this challenging environment, the efficiency of our operations has enabled us to successfully deepen relationships with existing programs and initiate two new partner sites in Brazil and India. Doctors and nurses whom we have trained are training their peers in their local regions. Disease prevention programs we support have expanded their reach. And we have continued to improve our ability to measure and assess progress at all of our partner sites. Ultimately, through the development of our partners, we are reaching more children than ever before.

The success of our delivery model would not be possible without the many generous volunteers and donors who continue to drive us to ever higher goals. We are in awe of you. Thank you for 40 years of support. We look forward to working alongside you for many, many more.

Annual Reports

Current Annual Report

Prior Annual Reports

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