Kristen Culliney Director of Operations & Strategic Partnerships

Kristen Culliney is a results-driven senior nonprofit leader with over 20 years of experience focused on equity, operational and programmatic excellence, and community impact. She currently serves as Director of Operations and Strategic Partnerships at Longmont Community Foundation, where she oversees the foundation’s daily operations, spanning financial management, human resources, technology, and program and partnership support. Kristen works to ensure the foundation can effectively fulfill its mission of improving the quality of life in the St. Vrain Valley area. In this role, she leads efforts to develop and strengthen operational systems, supports grant cycles and donor initiatives, and ensures compliance and organizational health across all functions.

Kristen’s career is rooted in food justice and economic mobility. Over nearly a decade at the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, she rose from Program Manager to Director of Resource Centers and the Caridad Community Kitchen, overseeing a network of five community resource centers across Tucson, Marana, Green Valley, Amado, and Nogales, serving over 110,000 households annually. She managed a team of 35 and oversaw more than $5M in annual budgets across six locations. During her tenure, she scaled a no-cost culinary job training program for low-income community members, secured a $2M kitchen renovation gift, and championed equity through her leadership within a 20-person internal Equity Team.

Following her time at the food bank, Kristen served as an independent contractor with Feeding America’s national Economic Mobility Team and Job Training Cohort, collaborating with the Ending Hunger Community of Practice to build capacity for food banks across the country. Her work centered on advancing racial equity and economic mobility through targeted learning groups, trainings, and national convenings.

Kristen subsequently served as Chief Program Officer at WorkLife Partnership, a national nonprofit social enterprise based in Denver, where she was a member of the Executive Leadership Team overseeing a portfolio of programs and partnerships and a team of 15, with budget responsibility exceeding $2M.

She holds a B.S. in Agriculture & Resource Economics from the University of Arizona and has pursued extensive training in DEI, racial and intersectional equity, and social innovation leadership. Originally from Tucson, Kristen relocated to Colorado in 2020. Outside of work, she loves spending time outdoors, hiking and cycling with her family. Kristen is also an avid gardener and advocate for local food systems, cultivating both edible home gardens and pollinator habitats in her own backyard and volunteering at a local community garden in Broomfield.