Investing in nursing has a broad and sustained impact on the health and well-being of us all. Investment – whether from philanthropy, industry, or the government – is essential to addressing current workforce challenges, including nursing shortages, as well as improving health outcomes.
Yet large-scale philanthropic investment in nurse-led leadership and innovation remains limited, and pressures on the nursing workforce have only intensified, driven by ongoing staffing shortages, rising patient acuity, and expanding expectations placed on nurses across care settings.
To explore this important issue, the SEE YOU NOW podcast spoke to philanthropists, fundraisers, program managers, executive directors, grantees, and innovators to uncover creative, strategic, and evidence-based approaches to investing in nurses. Tune into this series of episodes to learn why, how, and who is investing in nurses and nursing, or read on for three takeaways from the episodes.
Listen here:
Supporting bedside nurses: Why investment beyond education matters
Across the U.S., health systems continue to struggle with nurse retention, particularly among early-career nurses, highlighting the need for investment beyond traditional education and training models.
According to Kate Judge, former Executive Director of the American Nurses Foundation, many new graduate nurses experience a gap between their nursing education and the reality of the workplace. Today, most funding goes to nursing education and training, but more is needed to support the transition into practice, as well as nurses’ advancement and to elevate them into leadership. Through the three episodes, several creative, impactful approaches to clinical and career advancement are explored.
But beyond skill development, there’s another kind of support that benefits bedside nurses – recognition.
That’s where organizations like the Simms/Mann Family Foundation come in. In 2023, the foundation launched Off the Chart: Rewarding Nursing Greatness in, a three-year campaign in collaboration with four different health systems within the Los Angeles area: UCLA Health, Keck Medicine of USC, City of Hope, and Cedars-Sinai. The campaign offers a $10,000 gift of appreciation of extraordinary nurses for their leadership, ingenuity, and expertise in caring for their fellow humans and future generations.
“The fact that someone would write a check — with no strings attached — for $10,000, has been probably one of the most mind-blowing things for the nurses,” said Karen Grimley, Ph.D., MBA, RN, Chief Nursing Executive at UCLA Health and Assistant Dean at UCLA School of Nursing. “Now somebody has actually said to them, ‘We value you. What you are doing is significant.’”
Early support can attract students to nursing, and sustained support can keep them on the journey
With a projected nursing employment gap of more than 200,000 nurses, there is a nationwide need to increase the number of practice-ready nurses to support an increasingly diverse population. Strengthening the nursing pipeline requires innovative strategies that expand nursing education pathways.
When Bloomberg Philanthropies surveyed hospital CEOs nationwide to understand the gravity of the need, one resounding theme was the thousands of vacancies and the urgent need for more nurses, including nurses who reflect the communities their health systems serve.
Jenny Kane, who leads education initiatives at Bloomberg Philanthropies, developed a plan to build the healthcare workforce needed today and tomorrow – Nurses Middle College. This evidence-based, student-centered strategy connects with students as early as eighth and ninth grade and shows them the breadth of opportunities that a career in nursing can afford them.
Pamela McCue, CEO of Nurses Middle College, describes the model as health policy and an investment in the workforce, especially for students who are underrepresented in the pre-collegiate pipeline. This model of early engagement educates and equips students to go directly into the workforce in a patient care role. It also offers students tuition-free college prep education and free college credits.
Complementing NursesMC is a $250 million workforce initiative from Bloomberg Philanthropies asking high schools and hospital systems throughout the country to collaborate and design innovative programs through high school curriculum, paid work-based learning, and on-the-job experience, culminating in employment with that very system. Since its launch, Nurses Middle College has helped hundreds of students enter nursing and healthcare roles, with a majority continuing into the nursing workforce.
NursesMC isn’t the only philanthropic organization working to diversify the nursing workforce. The Elisabeth C. DeLuca Foundation enables nurses to explore the possibilities of careers within the profession.
The foundation focuses on individual nurses and their respective journeys, working to first root the desire to be a nurse within communities, then ensure that early career nurses become practice-ready and develop a career path unique to them, and finally leverage their on-the-job experience to educate younger and upcoming nurses.
“Every individual has some different journey that they’re going to go on,” says Elisabeth DeLuca, the foundation’s founder, and a former nurse. “Whatever impact we can make, in either nursing education or workforce or perception, it will impact every single individual nurse.”
Retaining experienced nurses is just as critical as training new ones
While expanding the nursing pipeline is essential, health systems and funders increasingly recognize that retention, work environment, and leadership development are equally vital to workforce stability.
Sparking interest in the profession and supporting nurses through their journey to practice is an essential part of addressing the workforce shortage. But it is only part – funding must also address the systemic problems that drive nurses to leave their roles. This is the key to having not just enough nurses, but enough experienced nurses capable of innovating to transform healthcare.
Ahrin Mishan, Executive Director of the Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation, serves on the board of the American Nurses Foundation and oversees the Hillman Foundation’s grant-making efforts, which focus on educating nurse innovators and advancing nurse-driven models of care for underserved populations. He describes nursing as an “untapped resource” that is deserving of more philanthropic attention, especially when considering how investing in nursing has a resonant effect throughout the entire healthcare ecosystem.
Marion Leary, Ph.D., MPH, RN, Director of Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Nursing, shares the sentiment. Through the Johnson & Johnson Nurse Innovation Fellowship, powered by Penn Nursing and the Wharton School, Leary trains nurse leaders in design thinking and human-centered design methodologies, immersing participants in the innovation process to address a real-world challenge their health systems are facing. Nurse leaders are then able to implement these innovation processes at their own systems across the country, accelerating the rate of nurse-led solutions to transform healthcare for all.
Johnson & Johnson’s legacy of commitment to the nursing profession
Johnson & Johnson continues to invest at scale in initiatives that elevate nurses, strengthen readiness to practice, and expand nurse-led innovation, reflecting a long-term commitment to a thriving and innovative nursing workforce.
“Nurses are at the core of many of these solutions, and they're uniquely qualified to help improve the quality of healthcare, advance health equity and ultimately transform and continue to evolve healthcare,” said Howard Reid, Johnson & Johnson’s Global Head of Global Health Equity. “Nurses are at the heart of innovation in this space. They're leaders in their workplace. They're clinical experts, advocates for patients, and so much more. So, to see the dearth of funding and investment is something that absolutely has to change.”
Nursing programs supported by J&J are designed to catalyze nurse-led solutions by helping individuals and teams lean into their natural innovative power and address healthcare problems within the work environment and in patient care.
For example, the J&J Nurse Innovation Fellowship is focused on advancing healthcare by empowering nurse-led innovation and leadership within health systems. Powered by Penn Nursing and Wharton Executive Education, the fellowship immerses senior nurse leaders in the innovation process by focusing on human-centered design and design thinking methodologies and applying them to a specific challenge faced by their health system.
Another example is NurseHack4Health, a community of nurses, healthcare professionals, developers, engineers, IT experts and other innovators focused on collaborating to address today’s most pressing healthcare challenges. Through specialized programming, NurseHack4Health empowers participants with the skills and mindset needed to ideate, pitch and bring to life solutions that proactively address the dynamic challenges of healthcare.
Why this matters now
“If we don’t start to solve some of these challenges, we’re not going to solve the problem at its root,” says Reid. “Everybody should be interested and invested in solving these problems.
Healthcare systems are navigating a moment of sustained strain, marked by workforce shortages, rising patient complexity, and widening inequities in access and outcomes. Nurses sit at the center of these pressures, yet investment in the profession has not kept pace with the scope of their impact.
Strategic, sustained investment in nurses is essential in stabilizing the workforce, retaining experienced clinicians, and unlocking the innovation needed to redesign care delivery.
From early pipeline programs to leadership development and nurse-led solutions, investing in nurses strengthens the entire healthcare ecosystem, improving care today while building resilience for what comes next.
