about us

Karen Eller

Karen’s 20-year career in fundraising has touched virtually every aspect of philanthropy. She spent 11 years with The Nature Conservancy, raising $20 Million for global conservation efforts. Early in her career Karen opened and managed the first Nature Conservancy philanthropy office in Austin, TX, and was recruited to oversee the California Chapter's individual major gift program in Silicon Valley. In California, she served as a founding partner of the Northern Sierra Partnership, an innovative, alliance-based organization developed to ensure the landscape-scale protection of the northern Sierra Nevada and associated watershed.

Karen transitioned to private consulting in 2010, and built the first fundraising program for FoodCorps, a new nationwide AmeriCorps service program. Since then, Karen has worked with large and small nonprofits, successfully developing long- and short-term strategic plans, coaching staff and boards on effective fundraising techniques, creating infrastructure and policies, facilitating trainings to maximize board potential, providing capital campaign counsel, and conducting feasibility studies. She sees her most recent work with the Denver-based Impact Finance Center as advancing innovation for philanthropy by helping donors and investors align their capital with their philanthropic values. Karen’s other clients include Fair Food Network, The Alliance for a Sustainable Colorado, Food and Environment Reporting Network, Generation Enterprise, and Slow Food U.S.A. She is a Property and Environmental Research Center Enviropreneur Institute fellow, and graduated from Trinity University with a BA in English and Minors in Environmental Studies and Geology.