Mission & Story
Our Vision
To share in the joy of ending the water & HIV/AIDS crises – with our partners and in this lifetime.
Our Mission
Blood:Water is an international nonprofit that partners with African community-driven organizations to end water and HIV/AIDS health disparities through organizational strengthening and financial support.
Our Values
- Community
- Responsibility
- Integrity
- Dignity
- Teachability
Our Story
Founded in 2004 by the multi-platinum, GRAMMY® Award-winning band, Jars of Clay, and activist Jena Lee Nardella, Blood:Water began as a call to personalize the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa. Since our launch, Blood:Water has raised more than $40 million through the creative, grassroots efforts of tens of thousands of individuals seeking to make a difference. We believe Africa holds the leadership, creativity, passion, and resolve necessary to address the HIV/AIDS and water crises. That’s why we’ve worked alongside more than a twenty African organizations to bring clean water and HIV/AIDS support to communities in more than ten countries.
When Blood:Water launched, efforts were focused on AIDS response through expanding access to safe water as an intervention with dramatic impact on slowing disease progression for those living with the virus. But the HIV/AIDS and water sectors in Africa have dramatically changed even as the needs remain. Unprecedented investment in the HIV/AIDS sector has transformed the nature of the disease from a death sentence to a chronically manageable illness. Water has grown into a robust sector, integrating hygiene and sanitation, and is now one of many available interventions that impact the quality and length of life for a person living with HIV/AIDS. Blood:Water’s model of investing in the programs and capacity building of local, African organizations help promote flexible and adaptable solutions in order to serve communities in the midst of a changing landscape.
Our Commitment
Our Shared Commitment
Standing within the context of historic orthodoxy, we confess that our beliefs about God, ourselves, and the world are most simply set forth in the Apostle’s Creed. From the earliest centuries of the Church, Christians in every culture have chosen these words to be the contours of true faith.
To live more fully into its meaning in the modern world, we confess that it is C.S. Lewis’ vision of “mere Christianity” that is our common ground as a staff and board. Acknowledging that honest faith can be expressed in various ways—within Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions—Lewis set forth a “central hallway,” which he called mere Christianity, a vision of belief and behavior that is common to all who confess Jesus as Lord. We take up our work within that central hallway.
Therefore, we commit ourselves to the common life required of this kind of work. We forsake the temptation to autonomy that is deep within the human heart, and promise to submit ourselves with honest humility to the virtues necessary for us to accomplish our mission. For 2,000 years the Church has ordered its life by justice, temperance, courage, prudence—and faith, hope, and love. Together, they form the heart of the good life, giving us contours for holiness as well as happiness. We will flourish as individuals and as an organization to the extent that we make these our ends.
As staff and board members of Blood:Water, it is with gladness and singleness of heart that we confess this to be true of us, giving shape and substance to who we are and how we live.
The Apostles' Creed
I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Maker of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost;
the holy catholic church;
the communion of saints;
the forgiveness of sins;
the resurrection of the body;
and the life everlasting.
Amen.