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<\/a><\/p>\nDonna Orender, then-WNBA president, with Briann January of the Indiana Fever, April 2009. (Courtesy Donna Orender)<\/p>\n
What stayed with her most was the caliber of the participants\u2014not as r\u00e9sum\u00e9s, but as people in motion. They were, she says, \u201ctruly special, wonderful, motivated women\u201d who don\u2019t waste energy asking whether engagement matters, because they are already \u201cactively engaged in their communities in doing things.\u201d If you want to understand her view of women\u2019s power, start there. It\u2019s not a label. It\u2019s a habit.<\/p>\n
Still, the flattering part of any gathering is easy: the group photo, the promise, the applause. The real test is the uncomfortable hinge point\u2014taking it to the next step. What happens after?<\/p>\n
Behind the conversations in Israel was an unusual coalition. More than 50 women leaders from different countries, faiths, and communities\u2014many from across the Middle East and North Africa\u2014came together in September 2025 as part of the Women Champions for Change cohort initiated by social entrepreneur Danny Hakim. Their goal was practical as well as ambitious: to build connections across borders and design peace-building partnerships strong enough to endure beyond the gathering itself.<\/p>\n
Orender\u2019s answer begins with a word so basic it almost sounds too small for the size of the problems on the table: connection. \u201cFundamentally, the first thing is you have people connected,\u201d she says. She talks about staying in touch with the women constantly\u2014\u201calmost every day\u201d\u2014not as a social nicety, but as an operating system.<\/p>\n
Fundamentally, the first thing is you have people connected<\/p>\n
When you keep the thread alive, she says, \u201cthings are percolating.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next she reaches for a metaphor that fits her style: plain-spoken, grounded, and quietly demanding. \u201cI always believe when you put seeds in the ground or seeds in other people \u2026 they will sprout.\u201d The line lands because it refuses the fantasy of instant transformation. Seeds take time. They also require care.<\/p>\n
I always believe when you put seeds in the ground or seeds in other people \u2026 they will sprout<\/p>\n
For her, those seeds are the women themselves\u2014their projects, their missions, their very specific \u201cpurviews.\u201d The group didn\u2019t come together for abstract solidarity; it came together because each participant had something real she was trying to build. Once they recognized the value in one another\u2019s work, the logic became obvious: \u201cWe can really help each other build those because they\u2019re so valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n
From there, Orender moves into a deeper obstacle\u2014how easily people turn each other into categories. \u201cWe can think macro,\u201d she says, and rattle off the familiar tags: \u201cYou\u2019re an Arab, you\u2019re an Israeli, you\u2019re a Jew, you\u2019re a Christian, you\u2019re a Muslim.\u201d Yet she argues that this macro view is only a sliver of the story. People are also shaped by the micro: \u201cthe neighborhood everybody grew up in.\u201d She calls it a \u201cmicroclimate,\u201d and points out that \u201cacross the street could be another microclimate,\u201d a small distance that can still produce two very different worlds.<\/p>\n
I think all of us feel othered<\/p>\n
For Orender, the idea isn\u2019t rhetorical\u2014it\u2019s strategic. When she distills the concept, she finds \u201ccommon human experiences.\u201d She also suggests a surprisingly personal door into that common ground: your own memory of being on the outside. \u201cI think all of us feel othered,\u201d she says. If you can \u201ctap into that vulnerability,\u201d she argues, it can produce empathy\u2014and empathy can make you \u201cwant to reach across to understand other people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orender played for the Chicago Hustle in 1980-1981. (Courtesy Donna Orender)<\/p>\n Yet she doesn\u2019t allow empathy to become a shortcut around moral clarity. In one of the starkest moments of her reflection, Orender says she has had to accept that \u201cthere is truly right and wrong. There is good and evil, truly.\u201d She speaks about how that reality can be obscured by what she describes as \u201ca moral inversion\u201d in public understanding\u2014an inversion she finds \u201cincredibly surprising.\u201d<\/p>\n Then, as she often does, she steadies the frame with history. \u201cBeing a student of history,\u201d she says, she understands \u201cthis is not the first time.\u201d That doesn\u2019t make the moment easier. It makes it clearer. It forces the question away from abstract outrage and into something more intimate and demanding: \u201cHow do I want to move through that? What impact do I want to make?\u201d<\/p>\n This is where her background matters\u2014not as credential-stacking, but as context. Orender\u2019s professional life has been built around turning potential into performance: helping people execute under pressure, keeping organizations growing, and translating belief into structure. Beyond her years as a player and WNBA president, she went on to found Generation W, a nonprofit focused on educating, inspiring, and connecting women and girls and the communities in which they live. Before leading the WNBA, she spent 17 years at the PGA Tour and also worked for major media companies, helping negotiate television deals that reshaped the tour\u2019s business and fueled major growth. She was also recognized as one of the most powerful women in sports and as one of Newsweek\u2019s 100 most influential women in business and sports, and she now leads Orender Unlimited while serving on private and public boards.<\/p>\n In Israel, with Women Champions for Change, her message is essentially the same\u2014only the \u201cteam\u201d is cross-border, the scoreboard is invisible, and the stakes are measured in whether relationships survive the next news cycle.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n