Philanthropy
Philanthropy is increasingly important both to nursing and to nurse executives. For many years, nursing relied on governmental funding both for education and for research grants. As these funding sources diminished, deans of nursing education programs became leaders in fund-raising and now we see this fund-raising focus beginning to expand into the nursing practice sector. This edition of Nursing Administration Quarterly offers nurse executives the opportunity to learn from the experiences of colleagues who have been successfully using philanthropic resources to support nursing activities while juggling the time demands from a health care system that is focused on quality measurement and improvement and cost containment.
An initial learning from this collection of articles is that fund-raising is more than just going on the hunt and asking for money and it is more than a one-time effort. It is about developing and maintaining relationships, which take work and time to accomplish. It is also about educating others of the important work that nurses do and the benefits to society as a whole that nursing makes. We know that there are people and organizations that want to give and that are willing to support nurses and nursing through giving. We also know that people who are willing to give have expectations and that nurses have the skill set to manage these expectations.
This collection of articles provides us with guidance about how to become involved with targeted giving. First, nurses themselves, and especially nurse executives whose incomes can support giving, need to become donors. Many of us have benefitted from scholarships or loan forgiveness, and there comes a time when it is important to begin the process of giving back to a profession that has been good to us. Second, we learn that beyond financial gifts, we need to donate the gift of our time to support nursing's cause and to foster targeted giving to nursing. Donating our time is a wonderful way for nursing to have a voice and to participate in philanthropy and to impact the decisions that are made about how donated funds are utilized.
The value of philanthropy and the importance of nursing engagement with the giving process can align with strategic initiatives of both nursing and the organization. Nurses everywhere are committed to the delivery of high-quality care and that commitment extends into research and innovative evidence-based care. Nurse executives need to position themselves and the broader nursing community to sustain these efforts by utilizing multiple support systems. One of these systems is now philanthropy, and this edition of Nursing Administration Quarterly showcases stories of successful philanthropic utilization.
I know you will enjoy these articles. I want to be sure that you know there are two bonus articles online as part of this edition. The first one is "Philanthropy as a Source of Funding for Nursing Initiatives" by Kleinpell, Start, McIntosh, Worobec, and Llewellyn. The second article is "Video Analysis Tool (VAT) System: Implementation and Evaluation of Use With Clinical Nursing Assessments of Older Adults" by Rosenkoetter, Smith, Stachura, McDonough, Hunter, Thompson, Richter, and Jones.
-Randall Hudspeth, PhD, MS,
APRN, CNP/CNS, FRE, FAANP
Guest Editor
Global Clinical Consultant
Cleveland Clinic International