Courtesy of LA CompostLIL’s 18-Month Capacity Building Cohort
2025-2026
LIL’s flagship program is an 18-month capacity-building initiative designed to increase organizational sustainability through personalized support. Participants work alongside LIL’s in-house consultants to strengthen their organization’s operations and hone their management skills.
Beginning with strategic planning and goal setting, participants receive continuous support and guidance as they solve key management issues aligned with their organization's strategic goals.
Garden-Raised Bounty (GRuB)
GRuB works at the intersection of food, education, and health systems. With roots in the land, we create opportunities for people to learn, lead, and thrive. We envision an equitable world where we are all nourished by healthy relationships, resilient community, and good food. Each year, GRuB directly engages approximately 1,500 Thurston County residents of all ages in relationships-based programming around growing & preparing good food. We primarily work with marginalized young people with low incomes and/or behavioral and disciplinary indicators of high ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) scores, families with low incomes, students, seniors experiencing hunger, tribal communities, and veterans.
Consulting Focus:
Support with staff management and workplace culture, prioritizing strategies that lead to long term sustainability for their team
Participating Leaders
Deb Crockett
Executive Director
As an environmental educator, Deb fell in love with farms as a place for gathering community, connecting with the land, and providing nourishment–both for individuals and for deeper social change. During 15 years at Angelic Organics Learning Center in Northern Illinois, she developed innovative farm-based educational programming while growing her own non-profit leadership skills and agricultural experience. Deb returned to her home state of Washington in 2019 to join the GRuB team, where she resonates with the playfulness, intentionality, kindness, groundedness, and adaptability of the GRuB community. Her hidden talents include delivering goat kids, solving really hard puzzles, disguising vegetables in desserts, and generating a punny twist for whatever task is at hand. On a weekend day, you might find her foraging huckleberries on a mountain trail, exploring a tidepool, grubbing around in the garden soil, or snuggling her Aussiedoodle Lucy.
Wade Uyeda
Program Director
Wade Uyeda (he/him) is an alum of GRuB’s youth programs (2000-2001) and returned to join the staff in 2009 where he has moved through several positions across 15+ years, currently as the Program Director. His experience growing up in poverty and experiencing ACEs and cultural assimilation fuels his passion for empowering marginalized populations. He brings humor and play in and out of work spaces, and believes they are crucial to relationship building.
LA Compost
As a community based non-profit, we support a healthy transition where food is never wasted, but returned to the soil for the next cycle of life. Cooperatively, with a diverse network of partners within LA County, we co-create spaces for local compost access and engagement, restorative practices, and community empowerment.
Consulting Focus:
Creating a viable business model for earned and contractual revenue to diversify funding streams
Participating Leaders
Michael Martinez
Executive Director
A native of LA County’s San Gabriel Valley, Michael Martinez is the visionary Founder and Executive Director of LA Compost, a community-based organization committed to creating a sustainable, regenerative future by connecting the people of Los Angeles to soil and one another. With a deep dedication to environmental stewardship and community resilience, Michael has led LA Compost in creating decentralized composting systems that empower individuals and communities to reduce waste and improve local soil health. His work has transformed waste management practices in Los Angeles and built strong, diverse partnerships that promote food justice and environmental equity.
Gina Vollono
Operations & Special Projects Manager
Gina is a native Angeleno, inspired and dedicated to healing urban environments through meaningful earthwork. She has extensive experience working with local landscape companies, urban farms, and nonprofits to bring beauty and purpose to urban spaces. As the Senior Operations Manager at LA Compost, Gina focuses on optimizing organizational operations while pursuing her passion for composting. She finds joy in watching compost’s transformation from beginning to end, a process that mirrors humanity’s own potential for renewal and growth.
Re-use Hawaii
Re-use Hawaiʻi envisions a community that fully embraces a circular economy—where industry and individual lifestyles are grounded in reducing waste and stewarding resources responsibly. As an island community, Hawai‘i faces unique challenges, and we see this as an opportunity to lead by example in resource stewardship. Our approach hinges on the core belief that we can create a model for the future through innovative, sustainable practices that address environmental and economic challenges while also providing meaningful employment. Our multi-faceted approach will ensure Re-use Hawaiʻi's continued impact, forging the way for systemic change that benefits both the environment and our community. At the heart of our work is an innovative and sustainable approach to demolition called Deconstruction. This method allows us to recover up to 80% of building materials for reuse, diverting tons of waste from landfills while also supporting local businesses and homeowners with affordable materials.
Consulting Focus:
Creating a financial plan to increase the margin from revenue-generating programs for workforce support
Participating Leaders
Quinn Vittum
Executive Director
Quinn Vittum is the Executive Director of Re-use Hawaiʻi. He co-founded the organization in 2006 after founding a Habitat for Humanity ReStore and Olympia Salvage, an independent non-profit, both in Washington State. Quinn’s life mission is to create a more sustainable world by helping create innovative solutions to the demolition and disposal paradigm. With a talented staff of 30 people, Quinn oversees Re-use Hawaiʻi’s Deconstruction and Material Redistribution Programs, including expansion efforts on Hawaiʻi Island. Quinn studied Fine Art and Sustainability at SUNY New Paltz, the University of New Hampshire, and Evergreen State College. As an Omidyar Fellow and through his work with the Hawai’i Leadership Forum, Quinn aims to help Hawai’i navigate its waste management challenges and develop a more robust circular economy in the State. Quinn sits on the Board of Directors of HEMIC Insurance, Hawaii’s largest workers' compensation insurance carrier. He lives in Kaimuki with his wife, Kara, and six-year-old son, Skylar.
Michaela Savage
Director of Administration
Michaela Savage has been with Re-use Hawaii since 2016 and has worked in several positions, including material Inventory, customer service, and Deconstruction Project Developer. She is now the Director of Administration, handling the organization’s finances, administration, and HR. Originally from Guam, she moved to Hawaii in 2012 to pursue her undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She lives in Kailua with her husband, Jeffrey, and almost 1-year-old daughter, Meadow.
Rebuilding Exchange
Rebuilding Exchange is built on the power of rediscovery. Our highly resourceful nonprofit is on a mission to keep materials out of landfills, train and support an inclusive workforce in the building trades, and use our two Chicagoland stores to surprise and inspire customers with ever-changing inventory and inventive workshops. We build home repair skills and provide creative activities that repurpose reclaimed materials. Our education and outreach programs help participants strengthen their ability to repair and reuse, keep stuff out of landfills, and have a whole lot of fun! Our workforce training programs provide transitional employment and pre-apprenticeship opportunities to support people on a path to a successful building trades career.
Consulting Focus:
Developing a revenue-generating business plan for their deconstruction social enterprise
Participating Leaders
Aina Gutierrez
Executive Director
Aina has 20+ years of experience in nonprofits, doing whatever it takes to make a values-driven, inclusive, and thriving community. Her expertise in building organizational capacity and fundraising has helped countless nonprofits become mission-driven, focused on impact, and sustainable for the long term. She has served at the Rebuilding Exchange for almost 7 years, and in her tenure, the organization has quadrupled in size and impact across two locations in Evanston and Chicago. Aina has also trained and consulted with hundreds of non-profit and religious leaders in building organizational capacity and is the author of Walking the Walk: A values-centered approach to building a strong non-profit.
Tammy Hsu-Hartenstine
Director of Finance & Administration
Tammy has over a decade of experience managing finance, accounting, human resources, and operations in non-profits. She has been with Rebuilding Exchange since July 2023 and serves as their Director of Finance and Administration overseeing finance, operations, facilities, and human resources. Her passion for non-profit work focuses on opportunity and is particularly drawn to Rebuilding Exchange’s work in how it provides opportunities for employment and opportunities for reuse in the circular economy. Outside of work, Tammy volunteers with Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity, Musicians Club of Women, and plays trombone with the Chicago Citywide Symphony Orchestra. She lives in the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago with her husband Joe and their beagle, Bagel.