The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
About Us
KFF is the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism. Our mission is to serve as a nonpartisan source of information for policymakers, the media, the health policy community, and the public.
KFF has four major program areas: KFF Policy; KFF Polling; KFF Health News (formerly known as Kaiser Health News, or KHN); and KFF Social Impact Media, which conducts specialized public health information campaigns.
We’re unique in the way we bring together these different areas to create and communicate information about health policy to a variety of audiences, including policymakers, the media, and the public. We’re more than a sum of our parts—this combination allows us to leverage our combined expertise and assets to play a national role on health policy.
KFF does everything based on facts and data, and we do so objectively without taking policy positions and without affiliation to any political party or external interest.
We’re headquartered in San Francisco with an office in Washington, DC. Dr. Drew Altman has served as KFF’s president and chief executive officer since 1991, when he founded the modern-day organization. You can read more about the organization’s mission, focus, and key programs in a president’s message by Dr. Altman.
KFF is governed by a Board of Trustees, which is chaired by former Senator Olympia Snowe. Learn more about the board.
We operate with a diverse mix of funding primarily from the resources we earn from managing our endowment, supplemented by funds we receive from foundations and our partners. You can learn more about our financials.
Like many organizations that were founded by individuals or families and carried the name of their founders forward as they evolved, KFF has been known as The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, or the Kaiser Family Foundation, because we were originally endowed by Henry J. Kaiser, the American industrialist.
But over the years, KFF has changed significantly. In 1991, Dr. Drew Altman joined the organization as president and chief executive officer, and founded the modern-day KFF, which is a nonprofit organization that conducts its own research, analysis, polling, journalism, and specialized public health information campaigns. Our mission is to inform the public health policy debate with facts and evidence, and we do that by sharing information in many forms about how health policy affects people.
But regardless of program area, at our core, KFF is an information organization. We create and disseminate information about health policy for policymakers, the media, the community, and the public. The hallmark of KFF is our focus on how policy affects people.
Importantly, we are not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente, and we are not a foundation.
That is why we are now called simply KFF, which is our operating business name. This is how our audiences have known us for many years.
To learn more about the mission and vision of KFF, read the President’s Message, by CEO Dr. Drew Altman. You can also learn more about our history.
KFF runs 13 programs within our four major program areas: policy analysis, polling, journalism and public health information campaigns.
Explore our staff directory. Search for KFF staff by name or filter by team.
Join our team – we’re hiring!
KFF Headquarters: 185 Berry Street, Suite 2000, San Francisco, CA 94107 | Phone: (650) 854 9400 | Fax: (650) 854 4800 (Directions)
Washington Office & Barbara Jordan Conference Center: 1330 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005 | Phone: (202) 347 5270 | Fax: (202) 347 5274 (One block west of Metro Center | Directions)
Learn more about our free conference center space in San Francisco and Washington, DC.