Clarifying Vision & Strategy to Foster Compassionate Young Leaders

  • Client Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots & Shoots Program
  • Impact Area
    • Youth Development
    • Leadership & Civic Engagement (International)
  • Project Type
    • Growth Strategy
    • Market Research & Analysis
  • What we did

    Helped Roots & Shoots clarify its vision and brand identity as one of cultivating compassionate leaders for the future. And developed a growth strategy to guide them in expanding youth leadership programs across several major U.S. cities, serving more minority and under-resourced youth.


The Client
Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots & Shoots

The Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots & Shoots youth service program is grounded in the belief that young people can make a positive difference in the world – and empowers them to do just that.

Founded in 1991, the program operates in over 130 countries to connect children and teens to the environment, animals, and other people, inviting them to map the pressing problems of their communities and to enact their own real solutions.

While the program already reaches 150,000 young people worldwide, Roots & Shoots strives to take their mission even further.

The Challenge

Roots & Shoots’ U.S.A. team engaged CiTTA Partnership to develop a growth strategy with the targets of serving more diverse populations of under-resourced youth within the U.S., evaluating capacity for branding and outreach, and tripling their impact in just four years.

Through comprehensive primary research including interviews, a survey and a focus group with key stakeholders, CiTTA provided a detailed analysis that highlighted the existing strengths of the program and captured areas for increased capacity and efficacy.

CiTTA drew road maps for expansion in the areas of thought leadership, sales, marketing and communications, and sustainability. The strategy also outlined the potential for phased growth through pilot programs across three major U.S. cities – New York, Los Angeles, and the metropolitan Denver area.

To arrive at these recommendations, CiTTA also conducted in-depth secondary research into community needs, school district dynamics and priorities, asset mapping and trends, benchmarking, and best practices in operational and business models.

But that is only part of CiTTA’s strength as a consulting partner. CiTTA’s purpose-driven mission meant the ability to truly conceptualize Roots & Shoots’ unique brand.

The CiTTA Difference

When market research revealed confusion between Roots & Shoots and founder Dr. Jane Goodall’s conservation work, CiTTA saw opportunities for improving its clarity of vision.

Distilling Roots & Shoots’ overall goals for increasing compassion for animals, people and the environment, CiTTA proposed a clear mission of compassionate leadership.

The concept demonstrated that Roots & Shoots exists not merely as an environmental club or an animal conservation initiative, but as a large network continuously cultivating future generations committed to making the world a better place.

As a direct result of partnering with CiTTA, the program now moves forward with a 9-item framework for measuring Compassionate Leadership Skills and Traits — enabling them to recruit, retain, and empower youth for years to come.

Thanks to the success of this national growth strategy, CiTTA has been re-engaged to evaluate the impact of Roots & Shoots’ international programs across 12 different markets in Africa, Asia, Australia, the UK, South America and North America.