Lauren Rayburn

Lauren is a facilitator, strategist, and researcher, working at the intersections of design strategy, grassroots leadership development, and interpersonal team alignment.

After more than a decade of serving as an environmental planner for the federal government, Lauren uses her background in ecological systems thinking, public engagement, and research to understand social dynamics and interactions that bring about positive change.  She helps make the invisible “visible” by centering the voices and perspectives of those most impacted, who are often marginalized and underserved.

Lauren currently serves as a customer experience (CX) analyst and project manager for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development mission area.  Here, she designs and facilitates listening sessions, focus groups, and interviews that center the voice of customers to improve federal service delivery across the mission area’s agencies and 40+ programs.

As a core member of CoThinkk, Lauren also serves as co-lead in creating programming and providing consulting support to grassroots leaders and organizations in the areas of leadership development, program design, project implementation, and collaboration coaching.  In 2019, Lauren was honored with a Tzedek Impact Award for facilitating deep relationship building among the Youth Elevation Collaborative members, a group of five grassroots organizations serving youth of color in Asheville, NC.

Lauren enjoys working with emergent leaders, small teams, and grassroots collectives in building their capacities for strategic visioning, planning, and implementation while also exploring team and group alignment. As a certified facilitator in CoreStrengths and Conversations Worth Having/Strategic Conversations, Lauren loves using participatory and reflection-based approaches in facilitation, training, and coaching.

When not working, you can catch Lauren in the mountains of Western NC helping out on her family’s small herb and spice farm and retreat space.