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New Endowment for Grant Pool Established

Leslie Grace

Leslie Grace, March 2009. Photo by Dawnee Dodson, Courtesy University District Museum Without Walls

Pangea’s board of directors recently approved the creation of the Leslie Grace Grant Pool Endowment Fund. Seed funding for the endowment was made possible by a generous gift from the estate of Leslie Grace, as well as from four current Pangea members who expressed interest in contributing to the establishment of the fund. The fund’s initial principal, totaling approximately $70,000, will be invested, and a portion of this new endowment’s income and growth will be used to support Pangea’s grant pool each year.

Leslie Grace was a long-time member, and active in Pangea until her passing on May 1, 2022. The creation of the Leslie Grace Grant Pool Endowment Fund will complement our existing Education and Capacity Building Fund, a separate endowment that was established in 2019 to support Pangea’s member learning and engagement activities.

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Pangea Celebrates 20 Years of Grantmaking

On June 4, 2023, Pangea members and friends gathered at the Mt Baker Community Club to celebrate Pangea’s 20th anniversary. Below is an excerpt from the presentation made at the event by Janet Pearson, Board President.

When I look around the room….my heart is filled with joy. Because we are finally able to come together as a community. The last time we gathered for an annual meeting was in 2019. That seemed like a long time ago! For such a people-oriented group – it’s fair to say that these last few years have been a challenging time.

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The Founding of Pangea

By Allan Paulson, June 4, 2023

At our 20th year anniversary celebration, Allan Paulson, a founding Pangea member, shared his recollection of the early days that formed our giving circle.

Allan Paulson

In November, 2001, I received an email out of the blue inviting me to come to a discussion about how we could promote better understanding across cultures and countries.  This was a few months after the 9/11 attack. One of the disconcerting back stories that emerged focused how much dislike and hatred there was toward Americans, and America in many parts of the world. I decided to go, and found myself in a large conference room high up in the Columbia Tower with 40-50 other people.

The meeting was convened by Martin King, a successful, serial tech entrepreneur who had a deep passion for social justice. “There must be something we can do to promote international understanding and peace, other than bombing brown people,” he said, referring to the start of the war in Afghanistan. It was a very eclectic group of academics, NGO leaders, and philanthropists that Martin and his facilitator Peter Blomquist had scraped from their rolodexes. I learned later that my name came off the registration list of a conference on international giving that Martin and I had recently attended.

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