Ensuring the Future of Nursing Initiative
The School of Nursing at the University of Minnesota prepares nurses at all levels of their post-secondary education who will represent and guide our changing world into the future. But for too many, their opportunities to shine in the classroom, the lab, and at the bedside are dimmed by financial and other realities. Their curiosity, talent, and potential deserve every chance to flourish and fully develop.
In an economy and a society emerging from a pandemic, the need to support the success of the next generation has never been more pressing. Ensuring the Future of Nursing is a grassroots initiative to rally around our future nurse leaders, today. Fostering lifelong success through a quality education and elevated student experience demands a focus on ambitious aims. Your gift gets us closer to these key objectives.
Your donation will be used to support these four giving priorities:
Foster success of inclusivity, diversity and equity practices
The professional values of nursing recognize the worth of human life, conserve human health and provide for social justice. As such, the School of Nursing is committed to advancing inclusivity, diversity and equity (IDE) throughout our community. Our educators, researchers, students and staff are guided by IDE strategies and plans for anti-racism, with actions taken daily and in the long-term to reject racism and promote health. Philanthropic support for the School of Nursing’s IDE practices will foster new inclusive, comprehensive educational models for students, recruit a diverse faculty, advance innovative initiatives like the use of virtual reality technology to teach how to identify and eliminate implicit bias in care delivery, provide resiliency and wellbeing support for students from Black, Indigenous and other underrepresented communities, fund research on antiracism in nursing practice, and more. With initiatives such as Training in Informatics for Underrepresented Minorities in Public Health (TRIUMPH) Consortium, a first-of-its kind partnership with Bethune-Cookman University, Georgia Southern University and University of South Florida, the School of Nursing enriches the learning community.
Promote nursing excellence through scholarship support
Scholarships ensure that promising and passionate undergraduate students are able to become the next generation of nurses. At the graduate level, scholarships support nurses pursuing Doctors of Nursing Practice degrees to become advanced practice providers like nurse practitioners and nurse anesthetists, thought leaders in higher education and researchers in nursing science. As the practice of nursing rises to meet today’s multifaceted challenges in health care delivery, philanthropic support of scholarships makes educational dreams accessible, inspires groundbreaking research and encourages new talent to join the nursing profession.
Advance nursing leadership in community health
Nursing leadership in community health focuses on the health of individuals, families, communities and vulnerable populations, as well as public health. This advanced practice places emphasis on public and population health initiatives, improves a community’s wellbeing and supports social justice. The School of Nursing has a proud history of leadership in preparing public health nursing leaders to care for local, national and global populations. The extensive expertise of the School of Nursing faculty brings together many diverse academic and practice-based experts who are actively addressing critical community, population and public health issues. From climate change to sex trafficking, food insecurity, health of refugee and immigrant youth, and intergenerational effects of trauma and torture, work on issues like these shapes practice, policy, and a culture of health for all people, especially those who are and have been marginalized and disadvantaged through social and structural inequities and racism. Philanthropic partnerships will reimagine the Doctor of Nurse Practice in Population Health specialty by creating an endowed fund, an endowed professorship and by advancing multidisciplinary research opportunities.
Fuel nurse-led research
The School of Nursing, recognized as the cradle of university-based nursing education, continues to be a leading advocate for the profession. Our faculty and student research promotes health among vulnerable populations, advances health informatics and systems innovation and investigates new ways to manage and prevent chronic health conditions. From research that establishes a new best practice or a new health policy–and more, philanthropy supports the School of Nursing’s development of health solutions and interventions to raise the standard of care for people and communities around the world.
Ways Donations can be Applied
Donations can be customized for student support, research, or faculty positions. For instance, the Nursing Diversity Scholarship ensures the nursing community respects the cultural richness of families and communities across America and around the world. Read about areas of need.
Impact Stories
At the University of Minnesota and across the nation, students with the greatest financial need are experiencing lower rates of college admissions, retention and graduation than their higher-income peers. Read stories about students who have benefited from scholarships.
Ways to Give
Cash and credit cards are a quick and easy way to give. Other ways include matching or corporate gifts, stocks, securities, planned gifts, and real estate or other property. Choose a donation that best fits your needs. learn more about ways to give.
Nursing Points of Pride
Awarded in scholarships in the 2023-2024 academic year
Value of chair and professorship endowment fund (November 2023)
The school named 38 new Bentson scholars in the 22-23' school year.