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In Conversation: Jami Oliver, Affiliate Chair, Columbus Affiliate
Columbus Affiliate Chair Jami Oliver spoke with Community Engagement Senior Specialist Paula Mukherjee about her personal connection to PanCAN’s mission and her efforts to support PanCAN PurpleStride as a business owner. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Paula: What first brought you to PanCAN?
Jami: I grew up knowing what pancreatic cancer was, in a very general way. My grandmother died of pancreatic cancer in 1969. I never met her.
According to my mom, my grandmother was having lower back pain, and the doctors couldn't figure it out. They did exploratory surgery. It was pancreatic cancer, and it was everywhere. They closed her back up, said that there was nothing they could do, and sent her home.
She lived with it for two and a half years. The five-year survival rate back then was 4%.
My mom would say, “I hope this never happens to me.” She had no idea there could be a hereditary component.
My mom started having lower back pain and digestive problems in her early 60s. I remember her saying, “I think they need to check my pancreas.” She would go to her family doctor, who would tell her that it was just diverticulitis, and the lower back pain came from factory work.
I would tell her to go back and ask for a CT scan, an MRI, something. She’d go back and ask, but her insurance wouldn’t approve the exams, and her doctor wouldn’t order them; he told her that she was being paranoid.
She started getting really sick and losing weight. Around the same time, her brother died from pancreatic and liver cancer.
I said that I would pay for her to get a CT scan or MRI. A few months later, she finally did it. The results came back: she had stage IV pancreatic cancer, and it was inoperable. There was nothing we could do, and she died four months later.
My mom died in 2009. I was absolutely devastated and became sick because I was so stressed out. It took me until 2012 to start volunteering with PanCAN.
My sister Joetta and I would drive to Indiana from Ohio and pay out of pocket for cancer screenings. She had cysts in her pancreas and was told they would never become cancerous. We were told that we didn't have enough deaths in our family to qualify for genetic testing.
We did that regularly until COVID hit and we went without screenings for two years.
In 2022, Joetta and I decided to go to Ohio State together to get screened. We went on the same day and had CT scans. When we came back, the doctor asked who wanted to get their results first. I said I would. My scan was clean and looked the same as the previous one. Then he went to my sister’s scan and said there was a lesion. My sister's face turned white.
He said, “We're going to do a biopsy, but it looks like pancreatic cancer.” She was diagnosed with stage I pancreatic cancer. We found it early, but she died 10 months later.
My sister was my best friend, and I lost her.
Before Joetta’s death, I had about five years of being really focused on volunteering with PanCAN, raising a lot of money for PurpleStride, meeting with my members of Congress – doing everything. I got burned out and dropped off to focus on my kids.
When my sister died, I got involved with PanCAN again, in her memory. I started raising money for PurpleStride again. I was so inspired by everybody around me and so thankful.
During the pandemic, the Columbus Affiliate struggled. Volunteers had gone different ways, people took new jobs and moved out of town, and we didn't have strong leadership. PanCAN asked whether I would be willing to step in, and I said, “Absolutely.”
I became the Affiliate Chair about a year and a half ago, and the affiliate has blossomed. Our meetings are well attended now. PurpleStride Columbus is going to be bigger and better than ever.
People who have been impacted by pancreatic cancer need a place to go where they can be understood. It's not just sympathy. It is truly empathy.
Paula: You launched your own law firm, Oliver Law Office, in 2000. Your whole office supports PanCAN and fundraises for PurpleStride. What does that look like?
Jami: Our law firm is focused on client experience and community involvement. We always meet in January to talk about what our community involvement is going to look like for the upcoming year.
We have 100% participation. If it's something important to one of our team members, everybody else joins in. We do it with an open heart and an open mind and as if it were our own family.
We support groups other than PanCAN; for instance, we support a lot of women’s events in Columbus. But because of my experience with pancreatic cancer and the passion that I put into it, everybody jumps on board with PanCAN.
We all raise money. We all walk together. My team members bring their families. We're all in this together.
Paula: We encourage businesses to create company teams for PurpleStride and support their employees’ fundraising efforts. Why should business owners like you support PurpleStride?
Jami: As a business, you can't exist without your customers or clients. For businesses – especially small businesses – to succeed, they need to be a part of their communities.
It's really important for business owners to get out and show people that you care, and that you’re giving back to the community, because they're giving to you. They bring business to you every day. They keep your team members employed. Any business owner who is not doing this is making a big mistake from a business standpoint, not just a charitable one.
I also believe that if your company is doing well, you should be matching your employees’ donations. We're going to start implementing that this year by matching gifts for our community involvement programs.
I challenge my fellow business owners to open their books and start matching gifts. Give an extra $1,000, $10,000 – whatever zeroes you have at the end of your revenue figure.
Paula: In 2023 you were recognized with an Excellence in Community Impact award. What does that award mean to you?
Jami: Crisp is a national company that specializes in law firm growth; they help law firms become bigger and better through marketing and coaching. One of the awards they give every year at their Game Changers Summit is for community impact.
I won that award because of my law firm’s commitment to our community and our involvement with PanCAN and PurpleStride. In honor of the award, Crisp donated all proceeds from their swag shop at the summit to PanCAN.
It was one of the highlights of my career. I've received awards for lawyer work and trial work, but getting an award for giving back to my community is special.
When I brought home that award, it meant a lot to the team. It was awarded to me as the business owner, but it’s really for us as a group.
Paula: Your PurpleStride team, Oliver Law Office/Team Joetta, has a big goal of $10,000. What are your strategies for getting there?
Jami: Our goal is to see if we can get every team member to raise $500. I think that's completely doable, even for people who have never fundraised.
We all get on Facebook on Fridays to promote our Facebook fundraisers. For me, that’s before I have my glass of wine, watch a show, and go to bed. For the young people in the office, it's before they go out.
We use Slack for our office communications. We have a community involvement channel on Slack and every Friday we get reminders of what we’re doing for PurpleStride on Facebook. We started that on December 1 and will go through the rest of the fundraising season. We also have an internal challenge: the person who raises the most money for PurpleStride will get a special gift.
It’s a bit of office competition and it really helps to have those automated reminders because they make community involvement a regular part of our jobs. We get reminders for PurpleStride – to send out Facebook messages or share about pancreatic cancer – just like we get reminders to file a brief or to return a call to a client.
If we can get everybody on the team to raise $500 each and I receive donations from my corporate friends and clients, we're going to surpass the team goal.
Paula: What are the similarities between leading your business and leading the Columbus Affiliate as the Affiliate Chair?
Jami: As a CEO, you’re handling all aspects of the business and you have all these pieces moving all the time: marketing, customer service, team experience, HR, and operations. What it really comes down to is being extremely organized and managing your time.
In my notebook, I write my goals for the day and what I’m going to do in blocks of time. PanCAN is there at least once a week. Within the PanCAN block, it’s divided into categories. Maybe one week I focus on helping the PurpleStride Chair find an MC, or setting the 2025 affiliate meeting dates, or coming up with ideas for guest speakers.
I need to have everything planned out in advance before I start a project. I’m not going to jump into something. Sometimes I’ll delay, delay, delay when I don't have all the information I need. Having these blocks of time helps me get started on projects even when I’m not yet sure how I’m going to finish them.
Communication is another big area. Learning how to have difficult conversations when things aren't going the way you foresaw or dealing with personality conflicts.
I'm a work in progress, like everybody else. I have days when I'm overextended. Here's the other big thing I’m still learning about being a CEO: delegation. Delegation and trust.
In the volunteer arena, you have to trust each other. You have someone in a role, and you’ve got to trust that they’re going to do that role.
Paula: You’ve been volunteering for PanCAN for many years, in different capacities. What keeps you motivated?
Jami: I'm a follow-through person. If I start something, I want to finish it. What keeps me motivated is the end that I have in sight.
I want to see us figure out what's causing the growing number of pancreatic cancer diagnoses. I want to see a 90% survival rate.
The researchers can't do this alone; they need us, the people with boots on the ground, to raise money for scientific research and patient programs. If we don't all work together, it's not going to happen. I know that I am a cog in the wheel that's making progress toward that end.
Please feel free to contact Jami Oliver (joliver@pancanvolunteer.org) or Paula Mukherjee (pmukherjee@pancan.org) with any questions.
Jami with her daughters at PurpleStride Columbus.
Paula: What first brought you to PanCAN?
Jami: I grew up knowing what pancreatic cancer was, in a very general way. My grandmother died of pancreatic cancer in 1969. I never met her.
According to my mom, my grandmother was having lower back pain, and the doctors couldn't figure it out. They did exploratory surgery. It was pancreatic cancer, and it was everywhere. They closed her back up, said that there was nothing they could do, and sent her home.
She lived with it for two and a half years. The five-year survival rate back then was 4%.
My mom would say, “I hope this never happens to me.” She had no idea there could be a hereditary component.
My mom started having lower back pain and digestive problems in her early 60s. I remember her saying, “I think they need to check my pancreas.” She would go to her family doctor, who would tell her that it was just diverticulitis, and the lower back pain came from factory work.
I would tell her to go back and ask for a CT scan, an MRI, something. She’d go back and ask, but her insurance wouldn’t approve the exams, and her doctor wouldn’t order them; he told her that she was being paranoid.
She started getting really sick and losing weight. Around the same time, her brother died from pancreatic and liver cancer.
I said that I would pay for her to get a CT scan or MRI. A few months later, she finally did it. The results came back: she had stage IV pancreatic cancer, and it was inoperable. There was nothing we could do, and she died four months later.
My mom died in 2009. I was absolutely devastated and became sick because I was so stressed out. It took me until 2012 to start volunteering with PanCAN.
My sister Joetta and I would drive to Indiana from Ohio and pay out of pocket for cancer screenings. She had cysts in her pancreas and was told they would never become cancerous. We were told that we didn't have enough deaths in our family to qualify for genetic testing.
We did that regularly until COVID hit and we went without screenings for two years.
In 2022, Joetta and I decided to go to Ohio State together to get screened. We went on the same day and had CT scans. When we came back, the doctor asked who wanted to get their results first. I said I would. My scan was clean and looked the same as the previous one. Then he went to my sister’s scan and said there was a lesion. My sister's face turned white.
He said, “We're going to do a biopsy, but it looks like pancreatic cancer.” She was diagnosed with stage I pancreatic cancer. We found it early, but she died 10 months later.
My sister was my best friend, and I lost her.
Before Joetta’s death, I had about five years of being really focused on volunteering with PanCAN, raising a lot of money for PurpleStride, meeting with my members of Congress – doing everything. I got burned out and dropped off to focus on my kids.
When my sister died, I got involved with PanCAN again, in her memory. I started raising money for PurpleStride again. I was so inspired by everybody around me and so thankful.
During the pandemic, the Columbus Affiliate struggled. Volunteers had gone different ways, people took new jobs and moved out of town, and we didn't have strong leadership. PanCAN asked whether I would be willing to step in, and I said, “Absolutely.”
I became the Affiliate Chair about a year and a half ago, and the affiliate has blossomed. Our meetings are well attended now. PurpleStride Columbus is going to be bigger and better than ever.
People who have been impacted by pancreatic cancer need a place to go where they can be understood. It's not just sympathy. It is truly empathy.
Paula: You launched your own law firm, Oliver Law Office, in 2000. Your whole office supports PanCAN and fundraises for PurpleStride. What does that look like?
Jami: Our law firm is focused on client experience and community involvement. We always meet in January to talk about what our community involvement is going to look like for the upcoming year.
We have 100% participation. If it's something important to one of our team members, everybody else joins in. We do it with an open heart and an open mind and as if it were our own family.
We support groups other than PanCAN; for instance, we support a lot of women’s events in Columbus. But because of my experience with pancreatic cancer and the passion that I put into it, everybody jumps on board with PanCAN.
We all raise money. We all walk together. My team members bring their families. We're all in this together.
Paula: We encourage businesses to create company teams for PurpleStride and support their employees’ fundraising efforts. Why should business owners like you support PurpleStride?
Jami: As a business, you can't exist without your customers or clients. For businesses – especially small businesses – to succeed, they need to be a part of their communities.
It's really important for business owners to get out and show people that you care, and that you’re giving back to the community, because they're giving to you. They bring business to you every day. They keep your team members employed. Any business owner who is not doing this is making a big mistake from a business standpoint, not just a charitable one.
I also believe that if your company is doing well, you should be matching your employees’ donations. We're going to start implementing that this year by matching gifts for our community involvement programs.
I challenge my fellow business owners to open their books and start matching gifts. Give an extra $1,000, $10,000 – whatever zeroes you have at the end of your revenue figure.
Paula: In 2023 you were recognized with an Excellence in Community Impact award. What does that award mean to you?
Jami: Crisp is a national company that specializes in law firm growth; they help law firms become bigger and better through marketing and coaching. One of the awards they give every year at their Game Changers Summit is for community impact.
I won that award because of my law firm’s commitment to our community and our involvement with PanCAN and PurpleStride. In honor of the award, Crisp donated all proceeds from their swag shop at the summit to PanCAN.
It was one of the highlights of my career. I've received awards for lawyer work and trial work, but getting an award for giving back to my community is special.
When I brought home that award, it meant a lot to the team. It was awarded to me as the business owner, but it’s really for us as a group.
Paula: Your PurpleStride team, Oliver Law Office/Team Joetta, has a big goal of $10,000. What are your strategies for getting there?
Jami: Our goal is to see if we can get every team member to raise $500. I think that's completely doable, even for people who have never fundraised.
We all get on Facebook on Fridays to promote our Facebook fundraisers. For me, that’s before I have my glass of wine, watch a show, and go to bed. For the young people in the office, it's before they go out.
We use Slack for our office communications. We have a community involvement channel on Slack and every Friday we get reminders of what we’re doing for PurpleStride on Facebook. We started that on December 1 and will go through the rest of the fundraising season. We also have an internal challenge: the person who raises the most money for PurpleStride will get a special gift.
It’s a bit of office competition and it really helps to have those automated reminders because they make community involvement a regular part of our jobs. We get reminders for PurpleStride – to send out Facebook messages or share about pancreatic cancer – just like we get reminders to file a brief or to return a call to a client.
If we can get everybody on the team to raise $500 each and I receive donations from my corporate friends and clients, we're going to surpass the team goal.
Paula: What are the similarities between leading your business and leading the Columbus Affiliate as the Affiliate Chair?
Jami: As a CEO, you’re handling all aspects of the business and you have all these pieces moving all the time: marketing, customer service, team experience, HR, and operations. What it really comes down to is being extremely organized and managing your time.
In my notebook, I write my goals for the day and what I’m going to do in blocks of time. PanCAN is there at least once a week. Within the PanCAN block, it’s divided into categories. Maybe one week I focus on helping the PurpleStride Chair find an MC, or setting the 2025 affiliate meeting dates, or coming up with ideas for guest speakers.
I need to have everything planned out in advance before I start a project. I’m not going to jump into something. Sometimes I’ll delay, delay, delay when I don't have all the information I need. Having these blocks of time helps me get started on projects even when I’m not yet sure how I’m going to finish them.
Communication is another big area. Learning how to have difficult conversations when things aren't going the way you foresaw or dealing with personality conflicts.
I'm a work in progress, like everybody else. I have days when I'm overextended. Here's the other big thing I’m still learning about being a CEO: delegation. Delegation and trust.
In the volunteer arena, you have to trust each other. You have someone in a role, and you’ve got to trust that they’re going to do that role.
Paula: You’ve been volunteering for PanCAN for many years, in different capacities. What keeps you motivated?
Jami: I'm a follow-through person. If I start something, I want to finish it. What keeps me motivated is the end that I have in sight.
I want to see us figure out what's causing the growing number of pancreatic cancer diagnoses. I want to see a 90% survival rate.
The researchers can't do this alone; they need us, the people with boots on the ground, to raise money for scientific research and patient programs. If we don't all work together, it's not going to happen. I know that I am a cog in the wheel that's making progress toward that end.
Please feel free to contact Jami Oliver (joliver@pancanvolunteer.org) or Paula Mukherjee (pmukherjee@pancan.org) with any questions.
Jami with her daughters at PurpleStride Columbus.
