Mother Cabrini Health Foundation.
Our Mission
We provide grants to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable New Yorkers, bolster the health outcomes of diverse communities, eliminate barriers to care, and bridge gaps in health services.
We seek to promote, sponsor, and support activities, programs, and initiatives that enhance access to affordable quality healthcare and healthcare-related services and address the unmet healthcare and healthcare-related needs of communities across New York State. This includes the social determinants of health, consistent with the ethical principles, tenets, and teachings of the Roman Catholic faith. Our Foundation will exist in perpetuity, helping generations of New Yorkers of all faiths or no faith at all.
Our History
The Mother Cabrini Health Foundation is one of the largest foundations in the United States and the largest foundation focused exclusively on New York State.
It originated from the 2018 sale of Fidelis Care, a nonprofit health insurer started and operated by the bishops of the Catholic dioceses of New York. Over more than 20 years, Fidelis Care under the oversight of the bishops grew to become one of the highest-rated, most successful insurers operating in New York State and created the opportunity for the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation to continue to address health disparities.
Our Logo
Why Purple?
It represents Mother Cabrini’s love of violets.
As a young girl in Italy, our Foundation’s namesake constructed paper boats and filled each with violets, imagining each to be a missionary on a quest to embrace humanity with unconditional love… the same love of humanity that today guides our grantmaking. Our logo’s symbolic elements are modeled after the gold emblem for the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Roman Catholic religious congregation Mother Cabrini founded in 1880.
The symbolic elements include the Sacred Heart, a star, a missionary’s boat, and water representing the great seas traveled, as well as New York’s mighty Hudson River.
About Mother Cabrini
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, known and loved by many as Mother Cabrini, arrived in New York in 1889 on a mission to help immigrants. She dedicated her life to providing for those most in need. As the first American saint, she serves as a powerful example of the Catholic values and principles that ground our work.
As an immigrant herself, Mother Cabrini knew the importance of providing for the most vulnerable in our community. Our Foundation is working to build on her legacy of service. In 2020, Governor Andrew Cuomo dedicated a statue in her honor in Battery Park City, and New York State posted this educational website with more details about her life.
Another great resource for learning about Mother Cabrini’s life and work is the Cabrini Shrine in Northern Manhattan.
Posted at the top of this page is a photo from our office in New York City, where we are always reminded of the spirit and presence of Mother Cabrini!
Our Leadership
Our top-tier leadership team drives the impactful work that the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation supports across New York State. Tasked with fulfilling a public mandate to reduce health disparities and honor the Foundation’s namesake, we seek to tangibly improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers in need.”
— Al Kelly, chair of the board of directors and chief executive officer, VISA.
Board of Directors
Alfred F. Kelly, Jr., Chair
CEO, Visa
Carla A. Harris
Vice Chairman, Managing Director and Senior Client Advisor Morgan Stanley
Robert M. Bennett
Chief Financial Officer
Peter J. Johnson, Jr.
President, Leahey & Johnson, P.C.
Jennifer C. Balbach
Partner, Summer Street Capital Partners
Catherine Kinney
Kathryn Connerton
President and CEO, Lourdes Hospital
Alex Ladouceur
Consulting Services
Michael J. Cooney
Partner, Nixon Peabody LLP
Robert Niehaus
Chairman, GCP Capital Partners LLC
Samuel A. DiPiazza, Jr.
Sister Pietrina Raccuglia, MSC
President of the Cabrini Mission Foundation Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Joseph Dutkowsky, MD
Pediatric Orthopedic Surgeon, Bassett HealthcareNetwork
Kathryn H. Ruscitto
Advisor, Board Member
Laura L. Forese, MD
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, New York Presbyterian Healthcare System
Kevin Ryan
President and CEO, Covenant House
John J. Gray, Jr.
Partner, Gray & Gray and Associates Certified Public Accountants, P.C.
Richard J. J. Sullivan, Jr.
Chairman, CM&F Group, Inc.
Stanley E. Grayson
President, M.R. Beal & Co.
Robert Unanue
President, Goya Foods, Inc.
2021 Board Committees
Regional Grants Committee:
- Kathryn Ruscitto, Chair
- Jennifer Balbach
- Michael J. Cooney
- Joseph Dutkowsky
- John J. Gray, Jr.
- Catherine R. Kinney
- Alex H. Ladouceur
- Richard J.J. Sullivan, Jr.
Finance Committee:
- Jennifer Balbach, Chair
- Michael J. Cooney
- John J. Gray, Jr.
- Carla Harris
- Catherine R. Kinney
- Robert H. Niehaus
- Robert Unanue
Statewide Grants Committee:
- Kathryn Connerton, Chair
- Robert M. Bennett, Chair
- Laura L. Forese, Chair
- Stanley E. Grayson, Chair
- Peter J. Johnson
- Sr. Pietrina Raccuglia, MSC
- Kevin Ryan
- Robert Unanue
Investment Committee:
- Robert H. Niehaus, Chair
- Samuel A. DiPiazza, Jr.
- Alfred F. Kelly, Jr.
- Catherine R. Kinney
- Alex H. Ladouceur
Audit Committee:
- Samuel A. DiPiazza, Jr., Chair
- Stanley E. Grayson
- Kathryn Ruscitto
- Kevin Ryan
- Richard J.J. Sullivan, Jr.
Executive Committee:
- Alfred F. Kelly, Jr., Chair
- Laura L. Forese
- Samuel A. DiPiazza, Jr.
- Robert M. Bennett
- Kathryn Connerton