Jacqueline Chu
Development Manager
Jacqueline (she/her) oversees and supports OAEC’s fundraising activities. Working in close collaboration with the Executive Director and the Communications and Program teams, she supports the development and success of the organization’s many core programs, partnerships, and fiscally sponsored projects. Before arriving at OAEC, she conducted fundraising for a local domestic violence-oriented nonprofit agency, and prior to that, she spent several years in resource mobilization and donor relations roles for UNICEF in Lebanon and Jordan. Jacqueline holds a BA in Psychology and an MS in Environmental Studies.
On Staff Since: 2025 Email Phone: x139
In Their Own Words
My passions:
I’m passionate about social and environmental justice – and about being a lifelong learner, which is why I’m grateful to be in this inspiring setting, among people who are untiring in their efforts to contribute to ecological restoration and positive social movement, and to embrace and elevate historically marginalized groups in meaningful partnerships.
Why my work matters:
Our global predicament demands action. OAEC has worked tirelessly, hand-in-hand with affected communities to develop practical solutions to social and climate-related issues, and with public resource agencies to achieve progressive policy change. I continually marvel at this team’s knowledge, sophistication, agility, and innovation mindset.
My favorite resiliency resource:
The healing negative ions all along the California coast.
My favorite food is:
Grown at home. We’re eternally experimenting and trying to embrace our failures, which are often gopher-caused. Because they were on the land first, I’m often saying, ‘They’re just trying to make a living.’
My work at OAEC:
I manage OAEC’s donation program and support the pursuit and management of grant funding and overall programmatic and general activities that ensure the functioning and success of our facilities, our work, and our partnerships.
My background:
I was raised in the Bay Area and was content to remain a Californian until I participated in my university’s Education Abroad Program in New Zealand. Experiencing its culture and natural beauty stimulated my wanderlust. I later had the opportunity to live in Eastern Europe, Central Africa, and the Middle East, doing work that allowed me to experience people and the land beyond a tourist’s perspective.
The wildest place I’ve ever been:
Our house in the Central African Republic, which backed up to rainforest, out of which also emerged black mambas and malaria-infested mosquitoes!
The happiest I’ve ever been:
After the birth of my son – and probably the most worried I’ve ever been!
How I regenerate:
By frolicking and sleeping outside among friends and family, under redwood trees, near a river.
