Foundation Governance

Foundation governance exists to preserve the integrity of HEART under commercial, political, ideological, founder, procedural, scientific, and fiscal pressure. Authority is explicit, bounded, reviewable, and separable from implementation or favorable outcomes.

Current Charter

Heart AI Foundation Charter v3.0 is current. Charter v2.4 remains historical and does not govern current technical architecture or institutional authority.

The Charter centralizes constitutional authority, standards integrity, and shared public goods while decentralizing implementation, assessment labor, regional operations, and commercial services.

Anti-capture architecture

Governance must prevent:

a funder, applicant, credential holder, method vendor, or market product from purchasing a favorable rule or outcome;
the founder or another related party from controlling a conflicted decision;
Foundation research from silently becoming mandatory;
certification volume or renewal economics from shaping standards;
a regional body from forking the constitutional core; and
Foundation resources from subsidizing private ventures.

Standards governance

Material change requires a proposal, authority and evidence review, conflict disclosure, independent challenge, reasoned decision, versioning, effective date, transition, and public record.

A research result, working group recommendation, webpage, method release, grant deliverable, or founder statement is not normative adoption.

Fiscal independence

The Fiscal Architecture and Independence Policy separates mission support from conformity outcomes. Fees, grants, donations, memberships, credential counts, referrals, and market products cannot depend on or influence a favorable determination.

Public / commercial boundary

HeartCore Ventures and related commercial projects are separate. Open materials are available to them on the same terms as others. Any assessment or standards interaction follows ordinary conflict, recusal, independence, evidence, scope, and public-record rules.

Foundation funds, charitable assets, restricted grants, staff time, or authority may not subsidize a related private venture.

Organization and current status

The Foundation is an Oregon nonprofit public benefit corporation. Board and delegated bodies exercise only current written authority. A named committee, professional body, issuer, Registry operator, certification body, or RFE is not treated as operational solely because a Charter or specification permits it.

For affiliation and registry metadata, see Research Affiliation.

Public governance materials

Board — The Heart AI Foundation board structure, duties, and role in the formation phase.

Board Packet — Prospective director materials for the Heart AI Foundation.

Board Recruitment — Board roles and criteria for the Heart AI Foundation's formation phase.

Code of Conduct — Professional conduct expectations for Heart AI Foundation board service.

Conflict of Interest Policy — Conflict disclosure, recusal, and independence rules for the Heart AI Foundation board.

Documents — Current constitutional, fiscal, governance-design, and formation materials for the Heart AI Foundation.

Fiscal Independence — How the Foundation separates sustainable funding from standards authority, favorable conformity outcomes, related-party benefit, and credential volume.

Governance Calendar — A public cadence for the Foundation's governance work during the formation phase.

Heart AI Foundation Charter — Charter v3.0 governs the Foundation's mission, authority, limits, standards duties, federation, anti-capture, fiscal boundaries, related parties, and continuity.

In Formation — How the Heart AI Foundation is presenting itself while the board and public bodies are still being seated.