History

The East Carolina Consortium for Nursing Leadership was created to serve the region by fostering leadership development among students, faculty, and practicing nurses. Our vision is to serve as a national model for regional transformation by developing leadership capacity and competence in nurses through education, research, and service.

Currently the Consortium operates through grant funding and the support of the ECU College of Nursing.

The consortium was established in 2006 with an initial grant of $20,000 from the BB&T Leadership Enhancement Fund. In collaboration with the Pitt Memorial Hospital Foundation, ECCNL was one of 11 agencies in the country to receive a $250,000 Partners Investing in Nursing Grant from the Northwest Health and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations in 2007. The Duke Endowment collaborated with PMHF to provide the $125,000 match on the PIN grant. This grant supported the consortium’s work to promote collaboration among nurse leaders in eastern North Carolina by addressing workforce concerns such as staff shortages, turnover, and the need to develop a pipeline of future nurse leaders.

Since its inception, the consortium has continued to receive annual financial support from the BB&T Leadership Enhancement Fund to establish creative student initiatives within the College of Nursing and has received several smaller grants to conduct research on other leadership concerns.