Karen Carnival

She / Her

Chief Strategy Officer

Karen Carnival came to Southern Oregon to explore rural women's collective land models during a college internship and fell in love, literally, with the place and the people.

More than 30 years later, Karen has lived in a number of the rural areas and small towns that comprise this beautiful region and has found her calling in supporting nonprofit organizations and small businesses that contribute so much to the vitality and strengths of these communities.

Karen’s educational background is eclectic, with undergraduate degrees in Accounting and English Literature, a minor in Women’s Studies, and a Master’s in Business Administration with a Concentration in Finance. As a nonprofit consultant and volunteer, her career experience includes almost three decades of assisting organizations in assessing their strengths, identifying their weaknesses, creating a vision, procuring funding, and making and implementing plans to grow their organizations in ways that are financially sound and structurally stable. 

Karen joined RFU after volunteering with related mutual aid activities serving fire survivors during 2020 and 2021, and is delighted to be part of the newly reimagined long-term vision at RFU 2.0. 

An avid athlete, she loves to be outside hiking the trails with her faithful canine companion, working out in the gym, or practicing her dance moves in the studio.