It’s a wonderful gift: KU School of Nursing awarded $1.6 million grant from Bedford Falls Foundation

It’s a gift that would have made George Bailey and his guardian angel, Clarence, proud.

The gift, a $1.6 million grant from the Bedford Falls Foundation — an organization named after Bailey’s fictional hometown in the Frank Capra classic movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” — will enable the University of Kansas School of Nursing to award scholarships to approximately 175 undergraduate students over the next four years.  

Beginning in the fall of 2025, the scholarships will be given on the basis of financial need to in-state students in KU’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program. Seventy-five percent of BSN students at KU have demonstrated financial need, and 20% are eligible for Federal Pell Grants, which typically go to students with exceptional need, noted Jean Foret Giddens, Ph.D., FAAN, dean of KU School of Nursing.

“We are so thrilled to bring this opportunity to our students,” Giddens said, noting that the average scholarship amount is estimated to be $5,000 per year. Students who are awarded the scholarship are expected to receive it both years of the program.

The grant also will be used to establish a $100,000 emergency fund for nursing students, the first such fund at the school. Students can apply for help from the fund if they have an unexpected problem beyond their control that threatens their ability to stay in school, such as a housing crisis, medical emergency or transportation problem. Past students at KU School of Nursing have had emergencies that jeopardized their education, such as a fire in the family home. The new fund will enable the school to help students in these extraordinary circumstances.

Students who are awarded the scholarship will be known as Conway Scholars, after Bill Conway, Jr., who co-founded the private equity firm The Carlyle Group, and his late wife, Joanne Barkett Conway. In 1997, they established the Bedford Falls Foundation, the name of which is a nod to the good luck the Conways believed they had experienced in their own lives.

In 2011, Bill Conway decided that he wanted to give away $1 billion, and he solicited ideas in the Washington Post for ways to create jobs for low-income people. After receiving more than 2,500 suggestions, he decided to fund education in nursing because of the great need for nurses and because he believed that anyone with that training would find employment.

“My wife had a lot to do with this. She just thought, nurses. She thought people who had nursing degrees could get jobs. It’s that simple,” Conway was quoted as saying in a 2012 article in the Washington Post, which also noted that he was impressed with the nursing staff who had cared for his parents. “My parents dying, the need for jobs. It all kind of came together and (we) said, ‘Okay, here’s a way we can do it.’”

The Bedford Falls Foundation has awarded grants to 33 schools of nursing, including Virginia Commonwealth University School of Nursing, where Giddens was dean for 11 years before coming to KU School of Nursing in 2024. “I developed a really great relationship with Bill Conway while I was there,” she said. “I planted the seed when I left, ‘if you ever want to head west with your philanthropy, put me on your call list.’ And they did.”

Giddens noted that in addition to having students with need, the foundation is also “really interested in being able to serve rural communities, and that is a key point for KU. As an institution, and as a school, we’re very interested in serving rural health.”

The gift aligns with KU School of Nursing’s goals by helping to enable the school to increase the number of students. Giddens is looking ahead to potentially more than doubling the school’s enrollment over time. Scholarships are one piece of the resource puzzle needed to achieve that.

“We have a lot of pre-nursing students in Lawrence who want to become nurses. On the other end of the pipeline, we have a huge need for nurses at health systems all over the country,” she said. “So we have an opportunity to really expand our nursing workforce by admitting more students.”