Meet Our Team Heartfelt Help

Our leaders are passionate about providing healthcare equity and access to heart transplant recipients who simultaneously suffered heart failure and financial distress, and about maximizing their financial, physical, and emotional well-being as they begin their second chances at life. Everyone volunteers their time.

I received my new heart – my second chance at life – in 2018. As I recovered, I knew I wanted to give back to the transplant community that was carrying me through my rough times. I began by volunteering as an ambassador for Donor Network West to educate the public about the life-saving power of organ donation. Then in September 2019, I became aware of a gap no one was filling in my area – one that could delay, or even cost, someone their second chance.

I learned about a patient whose heart transplant would be postponed until he could afford the doctor-required month-long temporary recovery housing near his hospital that his insurance didn’t cover. In the San Francisco Bay Area, that cost is out of reach for many people already burdened by snowballing transplant-related costs and decreasing income from inability to work. I couldn’t accept that such a reason would stand between someone and a life-saving transplant. I rallied my community and hosted a backyard fundraiser which raised $12,000 for him and another similarly financially challenged patient to move forward.

I also heard from a father whose daughter recovered from her heart transplant in their car because they couldn’t afford the required lodging and help wasn’t available for them. Their reality struck me as unacceptable. I was fortunate after my transplant. When deeply immunosuppressed and vulnerable, I was able to have a private space that protected me and facilitated my recovery. Every person deserves this same opportunity when beginning their second chance at life.

That’s why in 2020 I founded Heartfelt Help Foundation – to ensure that no heart transplant recipient suffers between financial survival and physical recovery. And we’ve grown! We now operate two financial aid programs, Lodging and Helping Hand, and three counseling programs, Peer Mentoring, Financial Coaching, and Parent Grief Support. These are what I dreamed of during my recovery. I’m committed to helping when patients and families have nowhere else to turn, and to removing economic and emotional barriers so healing can begin and they can thrive.

I’m deeply grateful for my second chance, and I feel a responsibility to make it count – by giving back to a community no one asks to join, but one that changes everything for those of us who do.

Listen to Denise describe Heartfelt Help Foundation here.

Read more about Denise’s story here.

Jim is second of the three co-founders. He crafts HHF’s strategy, focus, grant writing, financial operations, administration, and website. He retired as a Certified Fraud Examiner and Certified Forensic Interviewer from a career in financial crimes investigations, legal compliance and business ethics, and auditing in insurance, utilities, and banking.

Matthew is the third co-founder and helps to guide HHF’s strategy and operations. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and works full time as Sr. Vice President of Corporate Development for an international real estate software business.

Brady found a passion for organ transplant patients when he worked as a cardiothoracic and transplant intensive care nurse and learned remarkable life stories and outcomes. He has a personal connection to heart transplant in that his young cousin passed while waiting for a suitable organ. Brady currently works for a transplant-focused medical device company. He serves HHF by fundraising, educating the public about medical and financial needs of transplant patients, and following up with people we supported to learn their outcomes.

Amanda is a professional event planner who previously served the Foundation as a Director for a few years. She now creates our graphic designs, social media, and event information which are key to our brand and our non-grant fundraising.

Susan has advocated for organ donation and transplant patients since the all-night vigil in the hospital during Denise’s surgery. A retired educator, small business owner, and winemaker, she edits our many internal and public documents and does follow up with people we supported to learn their outcomes.

Francisco is a two-time Emmy award-winning television producer who edits the testimonial videos that patients themselves record for HHF’s website.

Several people have volunteered to coach patients, and parents of pediatric patients, about basic money management. They are licensed professionals in a financial occupation who will work one-on-one, remotely, confidentially, completely free of charge, without any obligation or solicitation, and at the patient’s or parent’s level of need. They aim to help build, rebuild, stabilize, or improve financial lives as people enter their second chapters after transplant.

Would you consider helping us maintain the momentum, grow and polish our operation, and provide for recovering patients who need your help?

We seek additions to the Board of Directors: people to guide, decide, and be responsible for the important issues in operating a nonprofit of our size and future, and who dig-in to the small tasks that make it happen. We also seek specialists with skills applicable to fundraising, mentoring, researching and interviewing and writing (journalism), editing video and audio, negotiating with vendors (hotels and landlords), applying for grants, accounting/bookkeeping, maintaining and updating a website, promoting via social media, and maintaining databases.

If you have time, talent, and tenacity to spare and share, we’d love to hear from you!