Philanthropic Foundations' Discourse and Nursing's Future: Part II: A Critical Discourse Analysis of RWJF Future of Nursing Initiatives.

Critical social scholarship highlights the power philanthropic foundations wield on the collective agency of groups, yet analyses specific to nursing are absent in the literature. In this second of a 2-part series, we employed critical discourse analysis to examine how control of enunciative privilege in Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's (RWJF) 2010 and 2020-2030 Future of Nursing (FON) initiatives challenge nursing's ability to enact its collective agency, particularly through professional nursing organizations. Findings are discussed within the context of nursing's self-regulatory privileges, history, and agentic obligations that are bestowed on the discipline by the greater public for the public good.

Philanthropic Foundations' Discourse and Nursing's Future: Part I: History and Agency.

In this article, we examine external agents' effect on nursing's professional evolution and the consequences for the discipline's collective agency, social contract, and self-regulation. Situated within Foucault's theories of power, we review how the power of organizations reaches into the fabric of everyday life and explore how philanthropic foundations have influenced a diverse array of disciplines, including nursing. Through a genealogic lens, we examine nursing history and professionalization and conclude with concerns surrounding nursing's exercise of its collective agency during one of the most significant, discipline-shaping activities of modern times-Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Future of Nursing initiatives.