Supporting Those Who Fight For Human Rights
Jessie Lamb’s ’07 philosophy on human rights is simple.
“It’s pretty universal. Everyone deserves a certain level of rights,” she said. “I have four children. I want to make sure they’re growing up in a world where they have as much access to those rights as possible and that they have the ability to live their lives as fully as they can.”
Since graduating from Pacific University in 2007 with a degree in media arts, Lamb has spent her career supporting those in the nonprofit space who make a difference in lives around the world.
Lamb’s exceptional service to nonprofits and her dedication to human rights has earned her the Pacific University Alumni Association’s Outstanding Alumni Award. The award recognizes alumni who have made significant contributions to their community or profession, recognizing individuals who have made tremendous accomplishments toward their life goals.
The award will be presented during the Alumni Association Awards Ceremony & Donor Celebration on Thursday, Oct. 10, held in conjunction with the university’s Homecoming & Family Weekend.
Since August 2023, Lamb has led a team that manages Amnesty International’s domestic direct mail campaigns, answers questions from members in the United States, and manages the organization’s mid-level donor program.
Lamb started with Amnesty International as a volunteer, working with petition campaigns and later as a legislative coordinator, training other volunteers on how to speak with elected officials. The volunteer roles led to part-time work assisting with the organization’s digital fundraising and engagement and ultimately to her full-time position.
“I jumped at the opportunity to come on staff full-time with them,” Lamb said. “I jumped at the opportunity to support the people who want to be part of the movement and their ability to help fund the work that Amnesty researchers are doing.”
As Lamb’s career has evolved, so has the nature of nonprofit marketing and advancement. She has worked for a pair of educational institutions (Pacific and the University of Portland), a health advocacy organization (the National Psoriasis Foundation), and a pair of humanitarian organizations in Mercy Corps and Amnesty International. Her roles have included everything from digital marketing to web development to fundraising.
While at Mercy Corps, she assumed three different roles in five years. For Lamb, it was a crash course on the ins and outs of nonprofit and humanitarian organizations. The roles also allowed Lamb to explore an interest in data science and branch out from her media arts background.
“I was following my interest in how the field was evolving,” she said. “I had an opportunity to learn about data science and analytics in a way that was growing in the field. Mercy Corps was looking to bring someone on in a new role to do that work. It was a great opportunity to expand my skill set and learn a new aspect of the field that I hadn’t been able to focus on much.”
Finding purpose by following and creating new opportunities is a significant part of Lamb’s journey. In 2022, Lamb started her own business, LMB Digital Fundraising & Consulting, which focuses on providing digital engagement and fundraising support to nonprofits. Her clients include the American Civil Liberties Union, The Syria Campaign and Amnesty International.
“I had some free time in a way that I didn’t have before. I had been following my kids around to their activities or doing volunteer work and a lot of that stuff shut down,” Lamb said. “But I wanted to keep engaging with these missions that are important to me.”
Lamb, who attended two other colleges before transferring to Pacific, has always been a service-oriented person. However, she believes that the service learning embedded into Pacific’s core curriculum and mission of inspiring students to think, care, create, and pursue justice in the world inspired her to follow service for her career.
“I had a lot of opportunities at Pacific with how [service] is baked into the mission here,” she said. “I think that sparked a renewal of that energy for me. I haven’t stopped working for nonprofits or volunteering since college. It’s a crucial part of my life.
“Pacific is full of people who inspired me to stay in the nonprofit space, to stay in higher education and to really lean into everything that I learned here as a student,” Lamb said.
In addition to continued volunteer work for Amnesty International, Lamb is a longtime board member for Oregon Outreach, a nonprofit that supports students who are at risk of not graduating high school.
While Lamb is passionate about human rights, she doesn’t have ambitions to be on the front lines of the work. Providing robust behind-the-scenes support is Lamb’s way to make the world a better place.
“It’s so nice to be able to say ‘Okay, there are problems in the world and often it doesn’t feel like you can do a lot about them. But there is something that I can do,’” Lamb said. “This gives me a sense of autonomy and empowerment and the ability be part of the community in a way that, if I wasn’t doing that work, I would really be craving.”