Darren Sudman, founder of Simon’s Heart, joins Sports Philanthropy Network’s Roy Kessel and Kayla Bradham in a heavy conversation about sudden deaths in young people. Simon’s Heart is an organization that provides access to heart screenings and outreach to the Philadelphia area with a focus on changing legislation around heart testing every child early on. Darren believes that it takes the big corporations such as the NFL to be able to shed light on the issues of young people suddenly dying. Darren’s organization is focused on partnering with similar organizations providing consistent AED access in schools as well as CPR education to decrease the amount of these deaths. In this conversation, Darren also discusses his new role as a consultant for the Walter Peyton Alliance in which he discusses collaboration, education, and celebrating student-athletes, or “Peyton Fellows”, who do great things for their communities.
Darren Sudman
After losing his son suddenly and unexpectedly, Sudman co-founded Simon’s Heart, an organization to prevent sudden cardiac arrest and death in children, teens and young adults. He developed life saving initiatives, passed legislation, built a crowdfunding site to distribute AED devices, launched a digital registry and created impact programs through partnerships with sports teams and corporations. The Overtime Challenge with the Philadelphia Flyers and the heart-shaped sponge with Scrub Daddy are two of his favorites. Today, he helps companies—both for-profit and nonprofit—increase their impact. He believes companies need to be more inspiring, and charities need to be more innovative.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darren-sudman
Website: https://simonsheart.org/
Key Points:
- 2:07 Background on Simon’s Heart
- 3:50 explains the disparities of heart research at the pediatric level
- 6:00 survival rates of sudden cardiac arrest
- 6:55 collaboration with other organizations and legislation
- 8:37 how to get laws in place to prevent future tragedies
- 10:00 discusses his new role at Walter Peyton Alliance
- 12:55 experiences of running a nonprofit
- 14:00 educating professional athletes on how to effectively advocate for their passions
