Karen joined the Board of Love Music in 2018 and is enjoying combining the use of her fundraising knowledge with her passion for community participation in the Arts.
Karen grew up in London and studied Community Theatre Arts at Rose Bruford College, a course which involved creating new theatre for delivery in school and community settings. She subsequently worked as a performer in a theatre-in-education company, before moving to Edinburgh to be near her family.
From 1986 she was one of two employees in the first satellite office of the (then) Association for Business Sponsorship of the Arts (now Arts and Business Scotland) before moving, in 1991, to take up the role of Fundraiser for Waverley Care, Scotland’s HIV and hepatitis C charity. Karen worked in the Fundraising Team at Waverley Care for 27 years, covering many areas of fundraising, including establishing the charity’s highly popular programme of Come and Sing events and its coveted fundraising relationship with the Pleasance.
In 2019 Karen left Waverley Care to join her husband, Dan, in the Docwra Partnership, a freelance fundraising agency which specialises in providing hands-on trusts and foundations fundraising to small charities.
Karen has always had a personal interest in encouraging children to participate in music. For a number of years she co-ran St Peter’s Singing Club, a children’s music and drama project in Newington. Both of her own children are now pursuing careers in the performing arts; one as a drummer and the other in musical theatre. Up to 2023, she was a member of Edinburgh’s Cadenza choir.
Karen helps to lead the music at Granton Parish Church, where she is an Elder.