Chow Imagine Fund

Honored as a “Living Legend” by the American Academy of Nursing, UCSF alumna Marilyn P. Chow, is nationally recognized for dedicating her life to advancing nursing and patient care. Now she seeks to raise the bar even higher. With a gift to UCSF, where she is a professor of community health, Dr. Chow has established the UCSF School of Nursing Marilyn P. Chow Imagine Fund to offer nurses the opportunity to reimagine healthcare.

The UCSF Leadership Institute, in partnership with UCSF Health Department of Nursing and UCSF School of Nursing is excited to announce the call for applications to support nursing innovation through the Chow Imagine Fund. In its inaugural year of funding, the Imagine Fund will support one or more projects which advance the professional identity of nursing. In the face of COVID, nurses, especially new nurses may have lost the opportunity to truly develop their professional identity. The aim for these projects is to repair, restore and invigorate nurses to develop their professional identity, step into leadership and create spaces for innovation.

Professional Identity

The evidence demonstrates that nurses begin to develop a professional identity through embracing the core values of nursing – professional comportment, values and ethics, the nurse as a leader, and nursing knowledge. Professional identity in nursing empowers nurses to take ownership of their practice to lead the way by promoting effective decision making, open communication and collaborative teamwork leading to job satisfaction, retention, and safe high-quality care in a healthy work environment. Therefore, UCSF School of Nursing and UCSF Health applicants can seek support from the Imagine Fund for efforts such as:

• Pilot projects to prototype, test and translate promising ideas related to professional identity into policy
• Collaborations between students, faculty members, clinicians and multidisciplinary research teams to generate innovative approaches to address the impact of professional identity on care delivery
• Symposia to stimulate dialogue and innovative strategies to incorporate professional identity into practice

If you are interested in applying for funding of up to $15,000 to support an initiative that would bolster the professional identity of nursing at UCSF, please complete this brief application by Wednesday, Feb. 1. Please note that applicants are asked up submit a brief video as part of the application process. Finalists will also be invited to a pitch event on Feb. 9, 2023, from 4-5:30 p.m.

Any questions about the Chow Imagine Fund, application process or pitch event can be emailed to [email protected].