The New Jersey Nursing Initiative: building sustainable collaboration

The New Jersey Nursing Initiative was publically launched in 2009 as a 5-year, $22 million program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation based at the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce Foundation. It was reauthorized in 2011 through 2016 for an additional $8.5 million. The initiative includes a faculty preparation program and strategic tracks of work focusing on building education capacity, increasing current faculty capacity, making nurse faculty a preferred career, leading policy initiatives, creating sustainable funding in support of nursing education, and ultimately, building local, regional, and statewide collaborative networks. The tagline, "So a Nurse will be there for You," emphasizes both the reality of an aging nursing workforce needing replacement and the expected health care transformation that will result in the need for new knowledge and skills in the future nursing workforce. The purpose of this article was to describe the New Jersey Nursing Initiative, emphasizing the partnerships that have resulted from the project to date.