Heart Walk: How Company Teams Built a $121 Million Walk

The American Heart Association's Heart Walk ranks first among the country's top 30 peer-to-peer fundraising programs, by the AHA's account. No school or church can copy its scale, but its structure explains why it keeps growing, and parts of it scale down well.

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The headline numbers

In April 2026 the AHA reported that "Heart Walk ranked No. 1 among all 30 programs for the sixth year in a row, raising $121 million in 2025," "growing by $11 million over 2024," which it called "the largest year-over-year increase" of any peer-to-peer campaign in the country.1 "With more than 180 events across the country, Heart Walk reaches more than one million people annually."

That's gross fundraising across a national program, not the result of any one walk. Spread across more than 180 events, it works out to at most about $670,000 per event, by our arithmetic, and the AHA doesn't publish per-event costs or the year the Heart Walk began. None of it predicts what a small charity's first walk will raise.

The engine: whole companies as teams

A school walk grows one family at a time. The Heart Walk also grows one employer at a time: the AHA recruits national company teams, companies that commit to take part across their organizations. A single company decision can put walkers on the course in dozens of cities, each with a team captain, internal emails and often a matching gift program behind them.

The local version shows up in the AHA's account of a recent Washington, D.C. walk in its centennial year: about 10,000 walkers, more than 500 teams and 84 companies raised $2 million, and an "Executives With Heart" campaign set a $715,000 record.2 Recruiting senior executives as fundraisers turns a company's leadership into its most visible donors and askers.

A walk that teaches something

The Heart Walk isn't only a fundraiser. The AHA ties it to "equipping participants with Hands-Only CPR skills" and to "the Association's goal of doubling the survival rate from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest by 2030."1 At the D.C. walk, organizers promoted "the two simple step[s] of hands-only CPR."2

Building a short lesson into walk day gives participants something to take home besides a t-shirt, and it reinforces the cause in a way a speech can't. A school could do the same with a lesson tied to its own cause: a library walk could end with a book swap, a garden walk with seed planting.

Survivors at the finish

The D.C. walk also featured a survivor lane at the finish, a kids' zone and a pet parade.2 A survivor lane is a small piece of course design with a large emotional payoff: it puts the people the money helps at the center of the finish line.

What a smaller walk can borrow

  • Recruit teams, not just walkers. A local business, a church group or a sports club entering as a team brings its own captain and network. The charity walk-a-thon guide covers team structure.
  • Ask about matching. Company participation often unlocks matching gifts. See receipts, taxes and matching gifts.
  • Give leaders a fundraising role. A principal's or pastor's challenge is the small-scale version of "Executives With Heart."
  • Teach one thing. A short, relevant lesson makes the cause concrete.
  • Honor the people you serve at the finish line.

Other national walks lean on different engines: the Walk to End Alzheimer's on a flower ceremony, the Walk to Cure Arthritis on tailgate tents for top teams. For the Heart Walk's reported total next to four other national charities, see our nonprofit charity walk examples.

Sources

  1. American Heart Association Newsroom, Heart Walk, Kids Heart Challenge, American Heart Challenge rank in top 5 U.S. fundraisers (April 16, 2026; accessed October 19, 2026).
  2. American Heart Association Eastern States, report on the centennial Heart Walk in Washington, D.C. (November 11, 2024; accessed October 19, 2026).