Jena Nardella
cofounder | Blood:Water and Jars of Clay
Jena believes deeply in building the durability and sustainability of nonprofit organizations and leaders.
At the age of 21, she cofounded Blood:Water alongside the band, Jars of Clay. Under her leadership, the organization raised more than $20M to provide grants to grassroots organizations addressing HIV/AIDS and water in sub-Saharan Africa. Jena recounts her entrepreneurial and spiritual journey in her memoir, One Thousand Wells: How an Audacious Goal Taught me to Love the World Instead of Save It (2015, Simon & Schuster).
Jena serves on the boards of Blood:Water and the Equitas Group and spends her Sunday afternoons in a Santa Clara County Jail teaching writing courses to inmates. Jena graduated from Whitworth University with a degree in political studies. She and her husband, James, have two children and live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Today we’re in the Bay Area talking to Jena Nardella of Praxis. You may know Jena from some of her work improving clean water access around the world and her book titled One Thousand Wells: How an Audacious Goal Taught Me to Love the World Instead of Save It. Today she works on building the durability and sustainability of nonprofit organizations and leaders with Praxis and recently their team wrote a book called The Redemptive Nonprofit. We got to talk to her about all of this and more, and we think you’ll really enjoy what she had to share…