Personal Giving Stories

Donor Gives to Ensure Care for Others

Spend an hour with Jean Stout, a retired medical office administrator, and you will quickly learn she has high regard for the work that nurses do. Stout spent her career working in surgical practice and has been a longtime hospice volunteer. She has witnessed the tremendous impact nurses have on patient care.

“Nurses are our angels on earth,” says Stout. “They are the ones who care for us, so it only seemed right to do something that might give a little bit back to them.”

Stout established the Jean C. Stout Nursing Scholarship to honor and support nursing students pursuing Ph.D. degrees at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). To date she has established six charitable gift annuities (CGAs) at the University of Illinois Foundation (UIF) that provide her steady payments in retirement and will benefit UIC after her passing.

Each December, Stout finds great joy in establishing a CGA to support her scholarship fund. “It feels really good to know I’m providing security for me today and that this will last beyond my lifetime,” says Stout. “You must have the faculty to teach future nurses and address the nationwide nursing shortage. Supporting students who have a desire to teach seemed like the perfect way to ensure a pipeline of talent to care for the generations to come.”