National Patient Advocate Foundation, a national non-profit organization, was established in 1996 by Nancy Davenport-Ennis. Ms. Davenport-Ennis personally became involved in legislative reform on behalf of cancer patients when a dear friend of hers, Cheryl Grimmel, was battling breast cancer and her insurance company. As Cheryl valiantly fought her fight, the Virginia Task Force for Insurance Reform fought to reform insurance coverage for cancer patients. Victory for the task force came with the passage of Virginia House bill 240 sponsored by Delegate Mary Christian in 1994.

Cheryl lost her battle with breast cancer in December 1994, and on the night of her funeral, as the rest of the world was ringing in the New Year, Nancy and Jack Ennis wrote business plans for National Patient Advocate Foundation and Patient Advocate Foundation. Cheryl's inspiration lives on in each initiative in which the Foundation is involved as it seeks to provide avenues of patient access through improved access to, and reimbursement for, evolving cancer therapies, therapeutic agents and devices deemed medically efficacious by the medical and scientific communities through legislative reform.