Joined 2025
For almost 20 years, Karoline has fundraised in cities from New York to Palo Alto and Honolulu to Davos. Currently Karoline is the Director of Principal Gifts at The Obama Foundation where she works with philanthropists on transformative investments in their work to inspire and connect the next generation of leaders while building the 19 acre campus for the Obama Presidential Center that is slated to open in 2026 on the South Side of Chicago. From 2018-2024, Karoline led The Trevor Project’s major gifts fundraising efforts, helping the organization’s total revenue grow from $12M to $90M to support their work to prevent suicide among LGBTQ young people. From 2011-2018 she was on the fundraising team at the Joyful Heart Foundation, an organization founded by Mariska Hargitay, focused on supporting survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. During her tenure, she raised and supported the cultivation of almost $30M, developed a series of signature donor engagement events across the United States, and is now a part of their San Francisco/Bay Area Committee of volunteers working to end the rape kit backlog in the U.S.
Her passion for philanthropy took hold while working for the fundraising office at the University of California, San Diego, in La Jolla, where she studied Political Science.
She believes in the power of a smile, finds energy and inspiration from strategy games like Settlers of Catan, and finds peace while hiking with her wife and two children.
