Her Story
About Brenda
Brenda Tenison is a nonprofit founder whose career has taken her from industrial engineering into mission-driven global humanitarian work. After earning a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Western Michigan University, she spent approximately five years working in industrial products and aerospace. Following a move to Pittsburgh after marriage, she transitioned into marketing and communications roles, where she spent the next 5–10 years building expertise in messaging, engagement, and organizational storytelling across nonprofit and mission-centered environments. She went on to found her first nonprofit, which she led for six years, before establishing Bbright, a faith-based organization she has now operated for five years. As the organization’s sole employee, she serves in a highly versatile, hands-on role spanning every aspect of operations—from communications and donor engagement to event planning, logistics, and international trip coordination. Her work also includes managing outreach efforts through digital, print, and email channels, as well as organizing annual visits to program sites across three countries. Through BBright, she leads efforts that support approximately 1,500 children worldwide, helping provide access to food, education, and long-term opportunity. In the past year alone, the organization delivered an estimated 650,000 meals and 2.4 million hours of educational support. She describes her leadership philosophy as a balance between ministry and business decision-making, recognizing that sustainable impact requires both compassion and operational discipline. Much of her expertise has been developed through hands-on experience, building systems and solving challenges in real time while remaining grounded in faith, service, and a commitment to helping children move from survival to hope and opportunity.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Brenda
01What do you attribute your success to?
What inspired me to do this work was a trip I took in 2019 to Thailand, to Faith House, where I met the girls we help in that country. I spent a week with them talking about their identity, worth, and value, centered around our faith. I realized they are very similar to the girls and children we have in America. They had their jeans and t-shirt and crossbody bag, they love to do each other's hair and have their nails done - they wanted the same things our kids want. When I talked with the director there, she told me the girls wanted to go to university but they didn't have the money for it. She said it would cost $3,500 a year. Living in a middle to high-income area in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, I just knew there was more we could do to help. People think you have to do millions of dollars to make an impact, like it has to be really, really big, but it doesn't have to be big. You make a little difference here, you make an impact there, and all of that matters. The girls we work with in Thailand are being saved from being trafficked. They're refugees from Myanmar, escaping a civil war that's been going on in their country for 70+ years. For less than $100,000 a year, we're sending them to college, and we have 4 graduating this month with professional degrees that will help them stay out of the trafficking situation. It's my great joy to do this work. I love going there and seeing them and encouraging them because the thread that goes through each of these places - Thailand, Kenya, and the Dominican Republic - is hope. If you give a child hope, they will work very hard to get that education. They will study 4 or 5 hours a day because they see that education is their way out of poverty. The hope drives them to succeed, because when we help these kids, it's a generational impact. We're changing that immediate family, we're going to change them as they become parents and then eventually as they become grandparents. That's how that change flows down, like the ripple effect of a drop of water. Hope is the thread that runs through it all, and I'm convinced that if you give someone hope that their circumstance isn't end-all, be-all, they will go through walls to make it happen. You just have to give them a shot.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Just keep going. Don't stop. You've got to just keep doing, just keep going. If something stands in your way, or there's a failure, get back up, try again, just keep going. Don't stop.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The most important values in my work and personal life center around faith, hope, and making a tangible difference in people's lives. We are a faith-based organization, and that faith guides everything we do, from talking with the girls about their identity, worth, and value, to making decisions about how we run BBright. I believe deeply in the power of hope - if you give a child or even an adult hope that their circumstance isn't end-all, be-all, they will go through walls to make it happen. You just have to give them a shot. I also believe you don't have to do millions of dollars or make really big gestures to matter. You make a little difference here, you make an impact there, and all of that matters. In my personal life, I enjoy staying active in many different ways, and my favorite thing to do is walk my dogs. I also value local community work - my husband and I have done a lot of work at the City Mission in Washington, Pennsylvania for the last 25 years, helping restore people to independent living. So we have a local interaction right down the street, and then our BBright work goes across the world. Both matter equally to me.
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