Founded in 1971 as part of the free-clinic movement by students who believed that “health care should be a right, not a privilege,” Fenway Health’s mission is to make life healthier for the people in the Boston neighborhoods in which its health centers are located: the LGBTQIA+ community of Boston and beyond, people living with HIV/AIDS, and the broader population. 

While extraordinary gains have been made in LGBTQIA+ care over the last several decades — much of it attributable to the work of Fenway Health — there remain ongoing, urgent unmet needs in the communities Fenway Health serves. Joining the organization in 2020, CEO Ellen LaPointe’s mandate is to evolve and transform the organization to optimize Fenway Health’s impact in the face of ongoing shifts in the healthcare landscape and the communities it serves, so that it can continue to deliver fully on its mission. Undertaking an ambitious strategic planning effort to guide its work in the coming years, Fenway Health is working to leverage the extraordinary legacy of its past and the passion and capacity it has today to become the Fenway Health of tomorrow.