Heart Failure Society of America Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 061416238
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2016–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-T 2025
- Location
- Rockville, MD, USA
- Phone
- 3013128635
- Rating
- 78
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Heart, Circulatory Research
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $9,459,756
- Expenses
- $7,988,031
- Assets
- $9,825,009
- Liabilities
- $1,983,732
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
19 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- John Barnes (CEO)
- Michael Givertz (President Elect)
- Ken Margulies (President)
- Michael Felker (Past President)
Highest reported compensation
- John Barnes (CEO): $529,929 total reported compensation
- Joori Jeon (COO): $347,445 total reported compensation
- Kristine Fridgen (VP-Meetings and Education): $228,211 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Provide a platform to improve and expand heart failure care through collaboration, education, innovation, research and advocacy.
What it reported doing in 2025
Education and ProgramsPrograms aimed at education for the entire heart failure team, including cardiologists, nurses, pharmacists, physician assistants, etc. The 2025 initiatives include the Heart Failure Seminars, Contemporary Issues in Heart Failure, CardioHub, and Heart Failure Certification (HF-Cert) Bootcamp. 1) Heart Failure Seminars In 2025, the series addressed important clinical and practice-based topics, including Heart Failure Devices, Cardio-Oncology, Palliative Care in Advanced Heart Failure, Pulmonary Hypertension and Right Ventricular Failure, and Assessment of Heart Failure Patients for Advanced Therapies. Several programs were developed in conjunction with HFSA Scientific Statements, helping translate HFSA guidance into practical clinical education.The series serves a broad spectrum of the heart failure care team, including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, registered nurses, trainees, and other healthcare professionals. Through expert-led education on diverse areas of heart failure management, the seminar series supports continuing professional education and multidisciplinary collaboration in the care of patients with heart failure. In 2025, the series included five educational programs and engaged 794 live registrants. In addition, 645 healthcare professionals purchased OnDemand access to seminar content, extending the availability of these educational resources beyond the live events. 2) Contemporary Issues in Heart Failure Designed to complement the 2024 HFSA AHFTC Board Certification Review OnDemand program, HFSA launched the Contemporary Issues in Heart Failure OnDemand educational bundle in 2025. This educational offering provides additional learning opportunities for healthcare professionals caring for patients with advanced heart failure and transplantation. While the Board Certification Review Course focuses on foundational knowledge relevant to board examination preparation, Contemporary Issues in Heart Failure addresses clinical topics and challenges encountered in practice. The bundle includes 11 expert-led presentations, each approximately 30 minutes in length, covering emerging therapies, evolving treatment approaches, and complex clinical decision-making in advanced heart failure and transplantation. The program serves physicians, advanced practice providers, pharmacists, nurses, trainees, and other healthcare professionals involved in the care of patients with heart failure. In its first year, launched mid-year, 19 healthcare professionals purchased access to the educational bundle. Through evidence-based educational content, the program supports continuing professional education and provides additional resources to enhance understanding of contemporary issues in advanced heart failure and transplantation. 3) CardioHub HFSA continued and expanded the CardioBites program, rebranding as CardioHub as to encompass multiple types of products. CardioBites is a micro-learning program that is targeted to the busy heart failure care team to provide information on one topic in a three-minute video. Two series initially launched in 2024 were completed in 2025. The Congestion series had three modules and an infographic released in 2025. The Inflammation series also had three modules released in 2025. A new CardioBites series was launched in 2025. CardioBites: HCM is a four-part module series. 2025 also launched three new CardioHub products: CardioBites+, CardioAbstracts, and Cardio Town Halls. CardioBites+ are like the original microlearning CardioBite product but produce longer videos (8-10 minutes rather than 3 minutes) with a single moderator interacting with different faculty over the module series. The CardioBites+ Amyloidosis series released three modules and an infographic. CardioAbstracts are live 45-minute webinar events, featuring video summations of select abstracts which are followed by expert-led discussions on recently presented clinical trial data in a conv
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 76% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 96% of reported program-service expenses outside its grant, affiliate-payment, and member-benefit lines. This expense classification does not rule out separately announced grant awards.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 66
- Transparency & Controls: 80
- Accountability: 100
- Sustainability: 49
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 68.7%; rating input score 69
- Program expense ratio: 79.7%; rating input score 80
- Fundraising efficiency: $3.01 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 7; 7th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 93.3%; rating input score 93; 18th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 3 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 50
- Compensation committee: Missing
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Pass
- Written employment contract: Pass
- Compensation survey or study: Missing
- Board or committee approval: Pass
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 75th percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 15.6%; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.23; rating input score 41; 41st percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.2; rating input score 35; 35th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 24.4%; rating input score 11; 11th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 7.2% per year; rating input score 100; 48th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 6.4% per year; rating input score 100; 47th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 7% per year; rating input score 100; 44th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 68.7% of revenue deployed · 79.7% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 11 of 11 board members independent · 9 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 10 filed program accomplishments · $6.4M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $530K · 19 people listed · 3 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Highest-paid contractors: 5 contractors listed · $1.7M reported
- Consistency: 34 of 35 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 6 filed schedules · includes major donors, grants, and executive pay
- Filing history: 10 filing years from 2016 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 12 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 4 filed related-organization links
- Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
- People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.
- Staff and benefit plans: Retirement and health plans the organization files with the Department of Labor, and the people in them.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 7/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 41/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 11/100.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 35/100.