Roots Community Health

Since its founding in 2008, Roots Community Health has developed a community-centered approach to health and wellness rooted in the needs and experiences of East Oakland residents. Its work extends beyond clinical care to address the social, economic, and systemic conditions that affect health and opportunity.

When Roots engaged PGS, the organization had recently parted ways with its Chief Development Officer and needed experienced support to guide its fundraising program. Existing systems and processes were not providing staff with the structure, direction, or accountability needed to manage donor relationships and fundraising activity effectively.

Roots was looking for a partner who could provide strategic leadership while also working directly with staff to clarify priorities, build skills, and guide implementation.

The organization was also taking on a massive endeavor: developing a new building for the Young People’s Wellness Center. Roots needed major donor strategy and support to advance this ambitious project while continuing to expand its annual giving program and build stronger relationships with individual donors.

Envisioned as a dedicated space for young people ages 13–26, the Center would bring together medical and behavioral health care, navigation, workforce development, leadership opportunities, and other supportive services.

PGS began by helping Roots create greater structure around its fundraising program. The work included assessing existing practices, clarifying staff responsibilities, strengthening fundraising systems, and establishing clearer processes for managing priorities and donor activity.

PGS worked directly with Roots staff to provide training, coaching, and practical guidance. Rather than simply delivering recommendations, PGS helped team members understand what needed to happen, who was responsible, and how to move the work forward.

The partnership addressed two complementary areas of fundraising:

PGS helped Roots build a more intentional approach to individual donors by strengthening donor identification, segmentation, outreach, acknowledgment, and stewardship. The goal was to deepen relationships with existing supporters while creating a stronger pipeline for continued and increased giving.

PGS worked alongside Roots to translate the organization’s vision for the Young People’s Wellness Center into a focused philanthropic initiative: the Roots for Youth campaign.

Support included strengthening the use of Salesforce and Classy, assessing and prioritizing prospective donors, developing individualized cultivation and solicitation strategies, shaping the campaign’s case and messaging, creating donor-facing materials, preparing leaders for donor conversations, and coordinating outreach and follow-up.

The approach built on strengths already present at Roots: a compelling mission, deep community trust, strong programs, and meaningful relationships with funders, partners, and public leaders.

PGS also helped Roots establish a quarterly review process that brings fundraising, donor outreach, communications activity, results, and upcoming opportunities into one coordinated framework.

The quarterly review has become an important tool for helping staff and leadership understand what has been accomplished, identify where follow-up is needed, and align communications with fundraising priorities. It creates a regular opportunity to evaluate donor engagement, highlight organizational progress, plan upcoming outreach, and ensure that Roots is consistently communicating its impact.

This process has been particularly valuable in connecting communications with donor strategy. Stories, organizational milestones, program updates, and external engagement can be identified earlier and used more intentionally to cultivate, solicit, and steward supporters.

Roots’ leadership, staff, donors, funders, community partners, and supporters generated significant momentum around the Young People’s Wellness Center.

In February 2025, Roots announced that its Roots for Youth campaign had reached $2 million, including a transformational $1 million commitment from BMO. Roots credited the milestone to the growing community of donors and partners investing in its vision for East Oakland youth.

In October 2025, that vision reached another major milestone when Roots broke ground on the Young People’s Wellness Center, moving the project from planning and fundraising into construction.

These achievements belong to Roots and the community that rallied around its young people and vision. PGS helped translate that vision into an actionable campaign by strengthening the fundraising infrastructure, organizing donor strategies, developing the case and campaign materials, preparing leaders for engagement, and supporting implementation as priority relationships moved forward.

The groundbreaking marked an important milestone, but it did not represent the end of the work.

As Roots is preparing for the Center’s next phase, PGS is continuing to help the organization build the funding, relationships, communications, and internal capacity needed to activate the space and sustain its programs.

The partnership has also expanded to include government relations and public funding strategy. PGS has helped Roots identify public funding pathways, map relationships with elected officials and agencies, monitor relevant policy and budget opportunities, and prepare organizational leaders for meetings and advocacy.

PGS remains actively engaged with Roots, providing ongoing strategic guidance, staff coaching, and implementation support. The partnership continues to adapt as Roots’ fundraising, communications, government relations, and organizational needs evolve.