Bob Elliott of Bluffton is a full-time worker posing as a retiree. I know because I asked him why he does it — all volunteer.

And he said, “I ask myself that every day.”

For eight years, he has done something every day to push the Hilton Head Hospital Auxiliary golf tournament, which he directs. Last November, the two-day tournament raised $70,000 to help the auxiliary with such things as scholarships for nurses and prescriptions for people who can’t afford them.

Elliott’s daily hounding has lifted that net for charity from $20,000 annually to $70,000. In 37 years, the tournament has raised more than $1 million.

But it has done something else. It introduced Elliott to a problem much greater than a three-putt. In fact, he calls it a crisis — the nursing shortage crisis.

It’s a drastic problem nationally, but worse here due to the high cost of living and a booming population of people aged 65 and above. Elliott said the state is projected to be 10,000 nurses short by 2030. South Carolina is already ranked No. 38 in the country for the ratio of nurses to residents, and has one of the lowest ratios in the Southeast.

So he went to work, starting a nonprofit that gives stipends to new nurses who commit to working two years in Beaufort or Jasper counties — up to $12,000 to do whatever they want to do with it.

On Wednesday, the start-up that he and Dr. Will Fuller co-founded in 2021 was honored at the annual meeting of the Community Foundation of the Lowcountry. The S.C. Nurse Retention Initiative won the Joan and Wade Webster Community Impact Award, with a $10,000 prize to give to local charitable organizations.

The initiative has so far accepted 43 nurses, with only three of them not staying for the two-year goal. It works on a service’s-rendered basis. Nurses with four-year degrees can be given up to $12,000 and nurses with two-year degrees up to $6,000. They get a check twice a year after proving where they worked over the previous six months.

Elliott said it is modeled roughly after the U.S. military, which will help you through college or medical school if you give the service four years.

Most of the money comes from competitive grants, but some comes from Beaufort County and the municipalities of Hilton Head Island, Beaufort and Hardeeville.

Two early grants from the Community Foundation of the Lowcountry got the start-up going, and the foundation also manages its funds.

Elliott said $7,000 of the award will go to his organization to cover the cost of one nurse. He said $2,000 will go to the Hilton Head Hospital Auxiliary in the name of Chris Corkern, whose financial planning group has been the title sponsor of the golf tournament for 18 years. And $1,000 will go to Memory Matters, which helps caregivers and individuals living with dementia.

Volunteer work demands passion, Elliott said, and he is passionate about golf, the auxiliary, improving health care and the importance of nursing.

“I have been successful, and I can continue to be successful in these two areas. I can still make a difference,” Elliott said. “I’m using the same skills I developed over 38 years in marketing and business management with Dow Chemical.”

It involves strategy development, selling, building relationships, tweaking to meet market demands, and getting back up when you lose. “There are so many wonderful nonprofits and we’re fortunate in our area, so it’s tough when we’re competing for limited funds,” he said.

He gets knocked for supposedly helping a relatively small number of individuals, but he sees it differently.

“We are a health-services provider,” Elliott said. “Each individual nurse we help will see 5,000 patients in a year. You have to look at the cumulative effect. Our 40 nurses will treat 200,000 patients this year.”