Lauren Click - How a Small Apartment Launched a National Nonprofit

[00:00:10] Dominique: Hello. Welcome to our episode of Green Champions.

[00:00:13] Adam: Thanks for joining us in our conversation with real people making real environmental change in the work that they do. I'm here with Dominique, the sustainability expert.

[00:00:21] Dominique: And I'm so glad to be here alongside Adam, Social Enterprise extraordinaire. We bring you guests who saw the potential for impact in their job or community, and did something pretty cool about it.

[00:00:30] Adam: From entrepreneurs to artists, scientists to activists, this podcast is a platform for green champions to share their stories and plant new ideas.

[00:00:37] Dominique: Today, Adam and I are so excited to be joined by Lauren Click. Lauren is the founder and executive director of Let's Go Compost, a nonprofit that's making composting accessible to all. So get ready for this. She's a Mercedes-Benz beVisioneers fellow Stanley 1913 Creator Fund recipient. And was named the US Composting Council's Young Professional of the Year. This year in 2025. Lauren's work focuses on eliminating barriers to composting by providing free bins, curriculum, and access to those resources so people can access that information from across all 50 states. And today we're getting to know Lauren as our green champion, so thanks for joining us today, Lauren.

[00:01:19] Lauren: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

[00:01:20] Dominique: So to kick us off, what really sparked your interest in sustainability and the whole world of waste?

[00:01:26] Lauren: So growing up, I was raised in suburban Arizona, so a lot of gravel and cookie cutter houses, and I had a very vivid imagination. So I really like to build things and use trash to make arts and crafts because we didn't have the largest budget to go to Michael's or Joanne's for craft supplies.

I was a girl scout, so I always think I had that outdoor nature in me and combining the two just made perfect sense. I really had a passion, I think, for sustainability my whole life. Went into college, studied marketing and PR. Out of college, didn't work in sustainability at all. And then in 2020 when everyone got really into sourdough, I learned about composting. 

So So a little untraditional. I was in a high rise apartment in Scottsdale, Arizona, and all the blogs I found just made it sound super easy, even though I was living in an apartment. So even though I had a marketing background, I fell for a greenwashed, magical plugin composting device that said it would turn my food scraps into soil overnight. It really just turned out to be a giant waste of $500, and I got really pissed off that I fell for it. My kitchen reeked, my electricity bills skyrocketed, and at the end of the day, I just didn't have compost still, so I was talking to my sister who is quarantined in Brooklyn, New York, and she said that she used an old trash can and filled it with a bunch of worms and started feeding it her trash. And I thought she had been quarantined for too long.

But she kept at it and I slowly started listening to her like the little sister I am. And as any good little sister, I started copying her again as I have my whole life. And I learned how to make worm compost bins with two buckets and a cup of worms. I would drill holes into them and then my worms, I could get them to multiply pretty quickly 'cause of this certain type of composting worm that we use. I just started composting in my apartment and I ate a whole chewy box that I got my dog food set into and I was really hooked after that 'cause I was like, "oh, this is so cool. 'Cause my apartment complex doesn't recycle either." So this is like really a win-win. I fed it, my old taxes, I was like, oh, this is so fun. I'm feeding my taxes and my trash. And then I guess kinda going into how I transitioned from that to now doing what I do for a living.

[00:03:41] Adam: Hold off on that before you transition. I'm just curious, like what's it like having this compost bin with worms inside your apartment?

[00:03:48] Lauren: Everyone gets a gross factor. 'cause you think of a cup of worms and I think there's just like a human instinct to be like, what the heck are you doing? But it's quite literally just a five gallon bucket that I keep under my sink with. It's two buckets and a lid on top, and it doesn't smell at all when you do it correctly.

It does take a few times to make sure you get the Browns and Greens ratio correct but it smells like Rich Earth and I just use it as a worm garbage disposal, and it's been really lovely. 

[00:04:16] Adam: Where did things go from there?

[00:04:18] Lauren: I had a lot of worm buckets at this point in my life and I really wanted to get better at gardening because that was definitely where I struggled I think from a sustainability perspective. I was like, "Okay, I've got composting down, like maybe I could grow some herbs", kept on killing all of my herbs and I was like, I got to save some money somehow I was just like becoming super expensive hobby.

So I found a seed swap group in my area that's just free seeds and plant starts, things like that. My mom, raised me to never show up empty handed anywhere I go. So I toted hundreds of these buckets around town and traded them around for free seeds and starters and things like that.

And then in the fall of I think it was 2021 at, by this point I just had so many teachers coming up to me at these events and asking for worm compost bins and, vaguely explaining that their schools have a lot of food waste.

And I was like, "where are you guys coming from and why do you guys care about this so much?" And I was really bored at my job at the time, so I was working in strategy and I had just some time to study this issue and I found it fascinating that people cared about what I cared about. 

[00:05:23] Adam: So you're in this job that, that you don't really care about and you're finding this really awesome curiosity around compost and multiplying this. Did it ever cross your head that, "Hey, maybe I'll do this for a living?"

[00:05:33] Lauren: No, and I feel like I had a very early twenties experience where every time I had a new hobby, I would monetize it and then begin to hate it. So I was like super into Pilates in college and became a Pilates instructor, and I was like that ruined it for me. Like I did some crafts, started an Etsy shop. Once it became a job, it ruined it for me. And so I never really did this with that intention. It just, it came very holistically which was great. And I think that's why it's so successful now 'cause I will keep doing it forever, I think.

[00:06:03] Dominique: I know somewhere you've said that like composting is a human right. Can you unpack that a little bit?

[00:06:09] Lauren: Everyone in the world has food waste, and I think that from a organic waste management perspective, everyone should have equal access to the ability to process organic food scraps correctly.

What I've seen in my work throughout the US, is that a lot of states that lack regulation for composting, do not have equitable access to composting. And it tends to be much more expensive than traditional landfills. And that's for a number of reasons of how our current waste management system is run.

[00:06:40] Adam: All right, so it's really about being able to provide the opportunities to people. So cost is not a barrier. What are some of the things that really make it more expensive?

[00:06:47] Lauren: The composting industry is generally not subsidized compared to a lot of other industries. It's new. And it's not the preferred waste management method for a number of reasons, which I do agree with a lot of them. So the most ideal world would be that we have no wasted food, right?

But unfortunately, a lot of food is overproduced. There's so many things happening in the upstream food system solution that composting is a really it's a really great lever to pull right now while still focusing on upstream solutions and upstream prevention because it can almost immediately mitigate the methane emissions releasing from food waste that would be sent to landfill.

It can be a lot more expensive because from my experience, a lot of companies that are doing the right thing for the planet are not just doing the right thing for the planet, but also doing the right thing for people and their employees. And they tend to pay living wages and equitable rate wages and benefits as well, which will drive up the cost.

[00:07:47] Adam: So Lauren, at this point in your journey, you are handing out these buckets to teachers. You still haven't said, "Hey, okay, this is gonna become a company and this is where I'm gonna devote my life to." How did things start to change? Where did they go from there? 

[00:08:00] Lauren: At some point between 2021 and 2022. And I only know this based off of like camera roll dates of photos I have of buckets I've met by wonderful first ever volunteer at our first board member once we became a nonprofit, Mackenzie Ramirez, who is a former teacher.

At some point, I met her, and she's a wonderful, amazing ex teacher who said she wants to work with schools and sustainability, but she doesn't wanna be a teacher anymore. And so she offered to start writing curriculum 'cause we had a lot of teachers who would get the buckets and say, "Do you have any curriculum that goes with it right now? I have to pay for curriculum." I was like, how is that fair?

I was like, "no. If you wanna teach about composting, I'll figure it out. I'll find some things." I'm not a teacher by trade, by any means, and I knew I could not do that. 

I slowly began researching, "okay, maybe I should do an LLC. Maybe I should do a 501(c)(3), What does that mean if I wanna become a nonprofit?" 

 July 2022. I had joined a local business accelerator program with this really great business in Arizona called Local First Arizona. It was a green business bootcamp. It was more so focused on how can you get your small business to become zero waste I met a lot of really great people through that accelerator. And I met Hannah Layton, who is still on our board, and then I think we had two other board members at that point, and we were like, "Okay, let's do it." And we filed for our 501(c)(3). 

[00:09:19] Adam: Okay. You followed for your 501(c)(3) , but why did you choose to be a nonprofit instead of a for-profit? 

[00:09:25] Lauren: We weren't charging the schools anything. We still don't charge schools anything to participate in our program. And I was being sent a lot of grant opportunities that could help cover the cost of supplies. So at the time we were running outta worm This is just still an issue. As it happens, people run outta worms I was like, "Shoot, this is getting to be a really expensive hobby. I have to figure this out." I was being sent grants through this accelerator program and they were pushing me towards being a nonprofit.

And so I think that's how we went about it. 

[00:09:57] Adam: I'm really curious about way back at the beginning of your story, you were curious about composting in your apartment and doing that at home, what sparked that interest for you in the world of climate? Your job was in strategy. This was something you were trying to build as an organization at first. Like what was like the trigger point for you being interested in seeing composting happen in your space?

[00:10:20] Lauren: Yeah. I think it was just those like viral tiktoks or Instagram where it's be more sustainable and it's a slideshow and it's like glass straw, reusable bag, electric car. I was like, okay, what's next on this easy checklist? And it was composting. So that's how I found it and I just got really into it. 

[00:10:38] Dominique: That's great. I love that. And I think it's cool you say that 'cause I know a big part of our mission with Green Champions is this idea that we wanna talk a little bit higher than the individual actions you can make. It's wonderful when anybody who's sharing their champion story can give little tidbits of things for other folks to get started. But talking about this like organization sized impact, it's really cool that yours was sparked by just looking at your individual impact and then figuring out how it can grow from there. So that's awesome.

[00:11:07] Lauren: And I still really like following those types of influencers on TikTok who are just backyard urban farmers or like a city beekeeper who gives you know, random bits of advice, leave the leaves in the fall and it helps native bees. I'm like, "Oh, that's cool. Like I didn't learn that before and then I test it out." So it's always a good day to learn something new. I'm still learning about compost. There's so much to learn. 

[00:11:29] Dominique: And that's amazing and I also think looking at your your achievements so far. We literally had to trim them out of your intro because you have so many, you have so many accomplishments thus far, so we're not doing injustice. But when thinking about fellowships in particular, you mentioned that accelerator, but you've also gone through Mercedes-Benz beVisioneers and Stanley's like first ever creator fund, I think.

Can you share about what that journey was like and how that has changed your path?

[00:11:57] Lauren: Stanley changed my life. I'm so grateful for my water bottle. Literally, we will have this forever. Stanley was crazy. So our first grant we ever won was through M3F Music Festival. They're really cool local music festival, and they donate all of their profits back to local nonprofits.

And I was like, "Oh, that's so cool like, to work with them." It was $250 and I was like living in large, like I've got sticker money 'cause we used to put stickers on top of our bins and we got the grant and Rachel at M3F at one point she'd emailed me, she's like, " hey, this grant is due at midnight." We should go for it.

And so that's how I heard about the Stanley Grant. I applied for it and I was like, it's a super big shot in the dark I don't know. And then we won it and I have a lot of photos of me sobbing because they quite literally they mailed me a check for $50,000 and that was more money than I was making in a year at that point in my life. And I was like, this is insane. Maybe it's a confidence thing. Like I was like, " So you guys really believe in my worms?". Because I had, a year before I was like, "why do all these teachers like worm buckets so much?" This is crazy. 

[00:13:06] Dominique: They believe in the worms in your hands. Let's make that clear that I think you're discrediting the role you're playing, but I can relate to that feeling where a grant actually got me started also. So I fully know that wait, you believe me before I leaving myself type feeling.

[00:13:20] Lauren: Yeah. I'm so grateful and I continue to send our contact, Emily at Stanley so many updates. That wasn't a fellowship, it was funding, but going into the Mercedes-Benz beVisioneers fellowship. That was another shot in the dark that I didn't think I would get. So same thing, I was on a bunch of grant finder websites at 2:00 AM as any nonprofit business owner is.

And I was like time to go for this one, and I applied. I just didn't think I was gonna get it. I don't know. It's probably a confidence thing, but also on the other side, I think it's, you have to be really realistic. If you work in nonprofits, only 5% on average are normally accepted. So you really just have to send out a lot of applications and all that, especially when you're getting started. And we're still under the three year mark, so we still barely qualify for a lot of grants.

So I applied for that in December of 2023 I think. I was accepted in May of 2024. And then they had us on a very strict training program, which is really great. It's international, so I think at the time there were 500 fellows, like 50 from each of the major countries globally across Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America. And they match us with a mentor. And my mentor at Mercedes-Benz has been more like a therapist, like really helpful. They match us with venture coaches, so we'd meet monthly with our venture coach to talk through whether you're a non-profit, for-profit or still filing, or you're looking for like your first round.

And then we had really strict online courses where we would have to, this is like 20 hours a week, and you just learn everything top to bottom. And I was selected to do year two, so I'm in my second year now and it's a little bit different.

But during that first year, I was able to go to Mexico City and meet with Mercedes-Benz, Mexico City, which was really cool. And also a lot of other North American fellows who are working in sustainability in other parts of the sector.

And then I was selected to go to Stuttgart, Germany to the Mercedes-Benz headquarters. And present my work there to a lot of other fellows globally, and then also their larger mentor network from like Oxford. A lot of places in London and the UK and Europe, which was really cool and really insightful to have different countries give feedback on your climate idea, especially from the EU because composting is much more normalized outside of the United States.

And then we won a good bit of funding for our first product, which we'll launch this fall which I'm really excited about. Now I'm on year two with them and it's been really cool. I'm still the only fellow in Arizona, so I'm really hoping that I'll start to see more fellows from the Southwest. But it's been a really cool group to learn and network with and just meet and be challenged about your own ideas 'cause I do work by myself, for myself except for my board who I meet with. And it's nice having external, experts who can grill you I think that's how I learned the best, and I find it to be very beneficial.

[00:16:23] Adam: Now you mentioned this being in. In Europe and other places where you're having conversation with people doing sustainability work in different areas. And you mentioned how in Europe composting is much more normalized, where it's not always front of mind in the us. How do you see that conversation changing? Or, Or why do you think it's important for that to change? 

[00:16:42] Lauren: I think in a lot of countries composting and food systems are handled entirely differently for a number of reasons. It's it could be talked about for hours and hours from a local food perspective, growing your own food, and a lot of that happened in the 1900s where, you know cities were really becoming dense and waste management had to be efficient and economical versus the US in the 1900s continues to spread out and sprawl with our suburbs.

So I think that contributed to our current issues in the US with landfill. Not saying that there aren't issues in Europe with waste management because there are, I know in the United Kingdom right now they have a giant protest from their waste workers for equitable pay and their trash isn't getting picked up, which I think in the US if that happened, people would really have a lot more opinions on the matter.

The approach that I take at let's go compost is doing more and more research from organizational sustainability perspective is "how can we create the most change with the least amount of dollars?"

Because the world is not all focused on worms and dirt, unfortunately. And schools have, happened into my lap and doing so much research, they're one of the largest taxpayer funded institutions throughout the US that hits every single community for the most part in the us besides like your 55 plus neighborhoods. And it's a really great way to leverage different points of change from a STEM solution, which school districts love.

STEM education is so critical, especially hands-on stem. Education that's affordable. So a lot of these schools can't afford 3D printers and intense robotics programs, right? But they can afford a lot of hands on small scale school gardening solutions. And that's not just teaching STEM skills, but it also can be combined with home economics. Growing your own food locally, especially this year, I think has been a really hot topic.

So that's been interesting to watch. and it just creates so much change because these aren't just places where students learn. students have more of a voice than people really believe to create large facilities management changes. There are about 50 million public school students K through 12 right now, and they're each creating about 40 pounds of food waste at school alone every single school year. So it's a huge amount of change.

When you look at residential programs that cities, start and stop and start and stop in a lot of places, it's really hard to get adults to listen because they're not being forced to sit down in a chair and learn, structure and subjects and align to national curriculum standards because that's just not the nature of adults and how we learn. But when you can impact these kids at a really critical time when they're learning other important behaviors about. Where does trash go? What is trash? What's my friend like, I'm not gonna hit my friend. We look both waysbefore we cross the road and we sort out our food. And that's just an ingrained habit.

And if you're at the composting conference next year, I highly encourage you. I do this every time I go anywhere of " Oh, what started you to work in compost?" And they always say they did it when they were a kid. And I think that's like a really critical point is adults have that gross factor because it's just ingrained in them.

There's two types of people, right? There's people who scream when they see a bee, and there's other people who lean in. And I think that's learned in early childhood development and that can really create change within about 18 years give or take, that trickle down to other generations.

[00:20:11] Adam: So if you could get these adults to sit down and pay attention. What's something that's often misunderstood about content posting or waste diversion that you would teach them? 

[00:20:18] Lauren: Every time I have a public event, if we're like tabling or at a booth somewhere, that's always the number one thing is like I had a weird neighbor at some point and they were composting and my house smelled so bad, and that just means it was being done incorrectly because somebody just had a trash pile in their backyard.

So I think that's like the number one thing that we deal with adults. Or they don't wanna pay for it because they already pay for a landfill and if they're doing the right thing, they don't wanna pay more, which unfortunately is just not how our current waste system works. 

[00:20:49] Dominique: Yeah, we could probably have a whole other episode unpacking the complex problems of the world of waste. It's been so interesting to hear your story begin with. You wanting to figure out like baby steps to take in your own life because you care about your footprint in your own apartment, and then seeing how that has like really quickly built you into being a nonprofit leader that is winning awards and doing amazing things.

But if you could go back and talk to your younger self from where you're sitting now, do you have any advice that you would give younger you beginning this process?

[00:21:21] Lauren: Yeah I think just like life advice for myself. I wish I would've taught that this you have like fight or flight. Like people always know fight or flight. And I don't fall into that. I've fall into freeze. Like I will freeze up if I get really freaked out or if I get really intimidated.

And I think that's more common than most people think. And something I learned in the fellowship I'm a part of now as one of the other fellows said, fail cheap and fail fast. And I was like, that is such great knowledge because I wish I wouldn't have not essentially wasted that first year. It took me from 2020 in my apartment to 2022 to actually file for our LLC, and then we got it in 2023.

So it's shoot, like I wish I could have sped that up a little more. I just wish I would've been not so like frozen and like the fear of what could have happened and would've just gone after it. Instead of planning and planning 'cause I feel like that was like very much the corporate America in me, where I'm like, "No, I'm gonna plan and then I'm gonna plan about planning." And then after that, like then I'll be ready to make a calendar and I'm like, why are we doing this?

Like I just need to get started and do something. So I think that would be my advice.

[00:22:23] Dominique: That's awesome. And if listeners are, right on that wavelength with you and wanna support you, how can they connect with you or be an advocate for the work that you're doing?

[00:22:31] Lauren: We can connect on LinkedIn. My LinkedIn's just Lauren click and our website's, let's gocompost.org. We do have a lot of new opportunities coming this fall. We're launching our first product line, which we will announce in late summer, early fall, so stay tuned for that.

Every month on around the first of the month, I create a giant list of grants, scholarships, fellowships related to composting or sustainability. Whether you're, 18 or 81, like there's normally something for someone on there and I just want more people to get interested in composting.

And then, the number one thing that I hope people take away from this is that composting is important. It is something that single one of us can interact with if we really, you know, make the effort to either advocate for composting in your community, advocate for your composting at your apartment complex, or if you have the opportunity in the funds, compost yourself. Because at the end of the day, every single person has food waste. But this is something really economical that you can do today or tomorrow to make a really big difference in your methane emissions. 

[00:23:32] Adam: Thanks so much for joining us today. I look forward to next time being able to share the story of the impact being created by Lets Go Compost. And talking about using compost as a tool for changing systems.

[00:23:42] Lauren: Thank you so much for having me.

[00:23:43] Adam: As always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability. We're here to put real names and stories behind the idea that no matter your background, career or interests, you really can contribute in the fight against climate change. 

[00:23:53] Dominique: You can find our episodes at thegreenchampions.com. If you wanna stay in the loop, give us a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Our music is by Zane Dweik. Thanks for listening to Green Champions, we'll be digging into Lauren's story more at our next episode. 

​