Community Builders Advisory Council: Rev. Zelna Joseph, PhD

Reverend Zelna Joseph, PhD, is Founder/President/CEO of the S/HE Identity, Inc. a nonprofit organization dedicated to mentoring, empowering, educating, and encouraging women to build a new self-image through spiritual guidance to achieve whole person wellness (body, soul, and spirit) from the spiritual foundation that God created woman in his image, equal with man and equally blessed by God. She is an Author, Speaker, Ordained Minister, and Non-Profit Management Consultant with over 30 years of leading faith and community-based, non-profit organizations.

In 1990 she founded United We Stand Women’s Center to meet the spiritual, emotional, and physical needs of women and families and developed a teen development awareness program to help disadvantaged teenage girls in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Later (1998) she relocated to Washington, DC and served as Executive Director of a teen prostitution prevention organization, where she led a team of experts to Russia to help develop HIV/AIDS prevention outreach programs which directly impacted Russian sex workers. To this day she continues to fight against human sex trafficking and works to help sex trafficking victims and survivors. Rev. Joseph also served as President and CEO of an organization that helped homeless women with housing and offered a residential drug addiction recovery program. Working under the tutelage of Dorothy I. Height at the National Council of Negro Women, she conducted a nationwide public education campaign for aging African American women. In 2006 she returned to Colorado at the helm of a faith-based organization providing free medical clinics and healthcare to uninsured/underinsured people. She later served as the Executive Director of the El Paso County Bar Association and formed a nonprofit organization to help the poor obtain free legal services.

Reverend Joseph is a strong leader, experienced in organization and program development, strategic planning, fund development and coalition building. She is a researcher experienced in survey development, data collection, and reporting. She is proficient in Microsoft 365 and many applications serving business and nonprofit organizations. She is a former City Councilwoman and has served on numerous boards and commissions. She devoted her life to helping underserved women, children and families and works to build strong, healthy communities. Rev. Joseph envisions a world where women, men and all people work together as equals to solve societal problems to ensure the health and well-being of future generations.