Foundations, major donors tackle nation’s nursing shortage

As more nurses leave their jobs in hospitals and health-care centers, foundations are pouring millions of dollars into efforts to ensure that more stay in the profession and get more out of the job than just the applause and pats on the back they got during the bleakest days of the pandemic.

Philanthropic pledges announced this year to help nurses and the nursing profession include:

— A $125 million donation in February from Leonard Lauder, heir to the Estee Lauder cosmetics fortune, to the University of Pennsylvania to create a tuition-free program that eventually will train 40 nurses a year. The gift is designed to extend for decades.

— United Health Foundation, which said in June it would devote $100 million to finance the training of 10,000 nursing and other clinical students who are people of color or have low incomes