Jena Nardella

Biography

At the age of 22, Jena founded Blood:Water alongside the GRAMMY Award winning band, Jars of Clay. Under her leadership, the organization has raised more than $20M, providing small grants to grassroots organizations in sub-Saharan Africa addressing HIV/AIDS and water, sanitation and hygiene.

Jena is the author of "One Thousand Wells" (Simon & Schuster, 2015) which shares a captivatingly honest account of how her passion for saving the world grew to a more humbler, long-term calling of loving the world in all its brokenness. Jena has been named one of Chronicle of Philanthropy's 40 under 40 and Christianity Today's 33 under 33. In 2012, she was invited by President Obama to pray for the nation in front of a TV audience of twenty million.

Jena serves on the core team for Praxis, a venture group building a community of high-capacity, faith-motivated entrepreneurs who have committed their lives to cultural and social impact. Jena and her husband, James, and their children, Jude and Haven, live in the San Francisco Bay Area.