Staff

Jennifer Sokolove (she/her)

Chief Program and Strategy Officer
Jennifer Sokolove

As chief program and strategy officer, Jen Sokolove leads the Water Foundation’s programs team, which drives grantmaking strategy to secure safe water for people, restore and sustain freshwater ecosystems, and build climate resilience. As a member of the senior management team, she helps implement the foundation’s overall mission and works closely with the CEO to engage new partners, develop campaign strategies, and grow field capacity. Jen has been working on sustainability for more than two decades, with a focus on community-based conservation.

 

Prior to joining the Water Foundation, Jen led grantmaking at the Compton Foundation around movement-building and narrative in climate change, reproductive justice, and peace and security. She first joined Compton to advance its environmental programs on fresh water, climate, and rural conservation in the western United States, as well as sustainable food systems and art for social change. Before Compton, Jen worked on a variety of community-led conservation projects in California, Montana, and the Pacific Northwest. She serves on the boards of the Story of Stuff, EcoAdapt, and the Biodiversity Funders Group, and the advisory board for the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program at UC Santa Cruz. Jen received a PhD in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from UC Berkeley.

Contact

jsokolove@waterfdn.org

Recent Blog Posts

"I grew up in suburban Maryland, in between Baltimore and DC. Right behind my house was a large farm that grew corn and had a small cattle herd.
In between the farm fields and my house was a forest and a creek, and that was where I spent all of my free time, exploring, imagining, catching tiny fish and tadpoles, making trails through the mud, splashing my friends. Just as it did there, water connects the western US and the world—supporting both agriculture and development, serving economies, coming through the tap as drinking water, and providing a place to play. At the Water Foundation, I get to help advance solutions that integrate all of these vital aspects of what water is, what water can do, and why water matters."