“If you can connect to a person or allow someone to connect to you, then you are building something really valuable for your life.”
When Donna Orender was growing up in the 60's, if you were a girl who played sports, you had to wear boys’ shoes -- because who expected girls to play sports? Perhaps not even Donna’s father, who dismissed her after school stick-ball games as “unladylike.” Not one to bow to conventions, Donna Orender went on to blaze trails not just by playing three years for the first women’s professional basketball league, but in redefining sports casting and production, negotiating how golf was marketed and covered globally in her 17 years with the PGA Tour, and then in championing women’s sports as a six-season president of the Women’s National Basketball Association. Perhaps Donna’s greatest legacy is in her role today, wielding the power of connectivity and relationships, inspiring and empowering women in Jacksonville and beyond as founder and CEO of Generation W and Orender Unlimited.
From sports to business to life: how do you dig deep?
It’s well known that sports teaches life lessons - but imagine if you’re not wanted on the court to begin with? In our fourth episode of Innovate Jax, Donna shares that she wasn’t the most gifted athlete (modestly not counting the fact that she played six sports in high school, lettered in five of them, and was the starting guard as a 17 year-old college freshman for the first-ever women’s basketball game played at “basketball’s Mecca,” Madison Square Garden). Yet Donna was on the front-lines of changing hard-baked perceptions about women, femininity, and athleticism in the days before Title IX sought to level the playing field. The lessons sports taught her influenced the rest of Donna’s life. Hard work, commitment, self-worth and resilience all contribute to a “muscle” Donna cites as getting stronger with experience, and positioning her to dig deep when facing down new challenges, be it giving an exceptional TEDx Talk, or in launching Generation W, a platform that brings women together with the purpose to educate, inspire and connect.
Women as equals? We’re still coming into our own
The hardest job Donna says she ever held started in 2005, the year she took the helm of the Women’s National Basketball Association. It was here “at the front lines of commerce and culture” that Donna witnessed “how the world really thought about women.” In short: “it wasn’t pretty.” In hindsight, Donna sees the WNBA’s goal of elevating women’s standing in professional sports and its associated efforts to gain equality in funding and media coverage as the “early curl of the wave” of the #MeToo movement, which Donna believes has helped to frame the equality conversation in meaningful ways. Yes, she’ll admit that we’ve made progress in women being believed as they share their stories. But there are other measures of progress, especially in the realm of leadership and diverse representation, where Donna declares we have a very long way to go. And this, she laments, is not where she’d want us to be 15 years after her tenure with the WNBA.
The super power of connectivity
Donna’s extraordinary talents are obvious and some even quantified (and still standing) in the record books. In listening to her interview, perusing her LinkedIn articles and observing her on stage, it might be safe to say her greatest talent is in creating connectivity. Think connectivity with purpose: emerging from the crucible of the early days of women’s pro sports, to the more recent experience leading one of its most iconic brands, Donna is compelled to create environments, networks and experiences where women can come into their own. Being there for teenage girls, mentoring young professionals, witnessing to the challenges so many face but then providing answers on how to overcome, and mostly, leaving the world a better place - all drive the agenda behind Generation W. And that’s all happening here in Jacksonville, the “hidden gem” that Donna has called home for 25 years. How fortunate for this city that Donna Orender, a woman who wanted to change the world, is doing so with Jacksonville as home court.
The Innovate Jax podcast will introduce you to the Jacksonville change-makers who are propelling our city into a new realm of sophistication. Our goal is to connect you to the people who are leaving their mark on our city today, in hopes that they inspire you to leave your mark tomorrow. Subscribe today and you’ll have fresh new episodes delivered to you each month. And feel free to recommend a guest by dropping us a note at innovatejax@forcura.com.
