About Us

Root Cause is a nonprofit organization that accelerates enduring solutions to social and economic problems by supporting social innovators and educating social impact investors. We do this through business planning and implementation, leadership development, research, and the creation of professional and funding networks that unite the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

Founded in 2004 by Andrew Wolk, Root Cause has raised more than $22 million in investment and produced seven publications in its pursuit of advancing social innovation. Our clients address issues like youth development, seniors and aging, and economic development. We have developed a network of over 4,500 nonprofit, business, foundation, academic, and government leaders and engaged almost 250 professionally skilled volunteers.

The government and private sectors are increasingly looking to the nonprofit sector for innovative solutions to today’s complex social and economic problems. Social innovators are poised to fill these gaps, but they must first overcome institutional and market challenges — from outdated performance and operation models to a volatile and underdeveloped capital market that makes it difficult to grow to scale. Root Cause supports social innovators and educates social impact investors to overcome these obstacles.

With this preparation, we believe that more organizations will successfully implement business models to operate, develop funding, measure results, and accelerate impact. Increased collaboration among the public, private, and nonprofit sectors will simultaneously facilitate the growth of the social investment market, enabling social innovators to better fill pressing social and economic gaps.