Our Funding Process

The Children's Heart Foundation's independent research funding process is a team effort! The Children's Heart Foundation is able to fund the most promising congenital heart defect research thanks to our volunteers and donors who raise critical funds each year to support our mission.

Funds raised are used in the same calendar year, making sure we put our donors' dollars straight to work. We do this with the leadership of our esteemed Medical Advisory Council (MAC). Our MAC is comprised of 15 of the country's top surgeons, doctors, and scientists specializing in the field of congenital heart disease, as well as lay reviewers passionate about our cause.

The Children's Heart Foundation does a call for research proposals each year, through June. Our MAC then reviews and scores each proposal we receive based on the integrity of the science, its significance, background of the investigator, and relevancy to The Children's Heart Foundation's mission.

The top research grants are then sent to our Board of Directors for their review and final approval of funding each December. Once these investigators are informed they've been awarded funding by The Children's Heart Foundation, their teams get to work at their respective centers, finding innovative ways to better detect, treat, and prevent congenital heart defects.

The Children's Heart Foundation is not affiliated with any one institution, so funding truly goes to the most innovative, relevant CHD research happening in the country in a given year. To view all of our funded research, click here.