Nightingale Foundation Makes Strides at 2024 AONL Conference

In early April, the Nightingale Foundation was represented as a pillar in nursing education at the American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL) Annual Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. In a strategic partnership effort with Nightingale Education Group and its three divisions, the Foundation was able to build relationships with individuals from across the nursing career continuum and talk about the current scholarship offerings that they have available to potential nursing students throughout the United States.  

“At our booth we had the opportunity to engage with nursing leaders on the importance of starting a scholarship program for their hospital or healthcare system,” said Katy Shoemaker, Executive Director of the Nightingale Foundation. “The initial response from the audience could not have been more positive, people we’re excited to learn that Nightingale had a foundation,” said Katy. “Attendees we talked to thought it was really impactful that the college made a strategic decision to look at its student population and determine that there was a massive need for funding to support these students who are coming from underrepresented and underserved backgrounds.” Throughout the conference the Foundation consistently worked to spread the word about how they are partnered with Nightingale College. They really wanted to emphasize the importance of having available resources to support those in underserved populations. Conference patrons expressed their admiration for the different ways that the Nightingale Foundation makes itself unique, for example in the way that the Foundation is only serving Nightingale College students and how Nightingale Education Group decided to create a separate business entity in order to support different populations.  

Although the conference had many other 501(c)(3) organizations in attendance, the Nightingale Foundation had the largest platform in terms of conveying its message. “In order to make an impression on the healthcare workforce you have to start with healthcare and nursing leaders,” said Katy. “These are the people that are making the decisions, going to their superiors and telling them to look at the employee population in order to make upscaling and rescaling a reality. We assured each of the leaders that visited our booth that a really great way to do this would be to partner with Nightingale in order to provide opportunities to those under-resourced communities.” In addition to spreading awareness on their objectives, the Foundation was able to gain several volunteer members who will donate their time and efforts to work on scholarship review. These volunteers will not only provide their experience as nurse leaders but also their professional lens as someone who works in the field.  

Overall, the AONL conference was a great place for the Nightingale Foundation to work on its outreach initiative and foster strategic partnerships that will allow them to continue to flourish as a part of the Nightingale Education Group umbrella. “Considering the Foundation is just under two years old, it was really important for me as the Executive Director to go into a space where there was a lot of external opportunity for people to see our name, learn about our mission, and engage with what we do. We need these people to take that home with them so that they can share it with their families, friends, employers, and communities,” said Katy. “Being able to spread the word about what it is that the Foundation is doing and the impact that we are having is allowing us to focus on our external legitimacy.” With an extensive list of targeted goals and measures, the Nightingale Foundation knows that in order to continue to build its base, it is going to take more occasions like AONL to convey to people what they are doing, how they are supporting students, and how they are making an impact.  

By partnering with Nightingale Education Group and having the opportunity to share its mission to such a wide audience, it allowed the Nightingale Foundation to talk to the nurses who are out in the field doing the work and supporting the communities where learners are going, living, and working. Interfacing with these communities is important and communicating what the Foundation is doing and having that personal connection with them will allow the Foundation to strive toward fulfilling its mission for years to come. 

For more information about the Nightingale Foundation you can visit https://nightingalefoundation.com/. If you are interested in supporting current and prospective nursing students, you can donate the scholarship program here: https://nightingalefoundation.com/donations/donate/ . By donating to the Nightingale Foundation, you are directly providing financial resources for those who are wanting to make a difference in the field of nursing.