Why Pangea Now: Oliver Wu
Oliver and his wife Abby are among our newest members, having joined Pangea in late 2019. Despite their “new-ness” as members of our community, Oliver has a deep knowledge of Pangea, and they have brought new energy to our work, particularly in the East Africa Pod. Learn more about Oliver and Abby and their involvement with Pangea in our second edition of Why Pangea Now.
Why are you a Pangea member?
I see this as a two-part question. The first part is: why give? Growing up, I looked up to Bill Gates as a role model. He spent the first half of his career building wealth, and the second half of his career giving it away. Now that I am older, I no longer subscribe to this model. If I don’t start giving until I am fabulously wealthy, I may never become wealthy (and never start giving). I believe in making giving a regular part of my life – whether I am rich or poor. That’s the reason giving is important to me – whether it’s giving away my time, knowledge, or money on a regular basis.
The second part of the question is: why give to Pangea? I spent a large portion of my Master’s degree studying the non-profit system and effective vs. ineffective giving. What I learned is that too many donors are not aware enough of the power difference between the donor and the grantee. The one who signs the check has a lot of power; many times, potential grantees write grant proposals based on what the donors are interested in funding, not necessarily what their communities need. I love Pangea because our grants are community-driven, not donor-led. There is a tremendous amount of humility on the part of Pangea members, and we incorporate the voices of our grantee partners in our grant-making. Pangea is a learning organization that continuously improves itself, and decisions within Pangea are made using the principles of sociocracy. In many ways, we are the opposite of a top-down approach to giving. Even though our grant-making budget is small, I believe our dollars go really far.
Pangea is a learning organization that continuously improves itself
How did you first hear about / get involved with Pangea?
I started as an intern for Pangea back in 2010. I was studying whole systems design at Antioch University at the time, and my professor Britt Yamamoto introduced me to a long-time Pangea member Bob Ness. I attended many Pangea pod meetings, education events, and wrote papers on Pangea as part of my Master’s degree. I had always wanted to join Pangea as a member someday but didn’t have the financial resources to do so. In 2019, Trump lowered our taxes and we received a tax refund we didn’t expect. Concerned with the growing inequality and the direction our country was headed, my wife Abby and I decided to donate the unexpected tax refund. That’s how we became Pangea members in December 2019.
How have you participated in Pangea as a member?
Since becoming a Pangea member in December 2019, I tried out both the Africa pod and the Latin American pod. The time commitment was getting to be too much, so I decided to focus on the Africa pod only. With a two-year-old daughter at home, it was challenging for us to attend Pangea meetings. We had to hire a babysitter if we wanted to attend a Pangea meeting, and the meeting time had to line up with my work schedule, our daughter’s sleep time, and the babysitter’s schedule. The expenses of hiring a babysitter in order to attend Pangea meetings also limited how much we could afford to contribute to Pangea. Switching all the Pangea meetings to Zoom due to the pandemic actually made things easier for us. Abby would watch our daughter, and I would hop on Zoom. We know our availability to attend Pangea meetings is very limited, and we appreciate the efforts other Pangea members have made to offer as much flexibility as possible with the meeting schedule.
What is one interesting thing about you that other Pangea members might like to know?
When I am not working as a business analyst, I enjoy playing the piano. My piano playing has been featured in various theatre productions in the Seattle area including Pride and Prejudice, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Homer’s Odyssey, and others. The most recent piano performance I did was during my brother-in-law’s wedding last year when I played music from La La Land, Sound of Music, The Shape of Water, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Willy Wonka, My Neighbor Totoro, Interstellar, and more. Our two-year-old daughter loves to read. I figured that reading books is no different from reading sheet music, so we started reading sheet music together and translating notes onto the piano. Most of the time though, she demands The Entertainer and won’t let me play anything else when she is sitting on my lap.
