Our Founder Liz Douglas birthed the original Roots Project in 2009 with the aim to create a movement amongst the most disadvantaged communities in the UK and break cycles of trauma amongst families and communities. Earlier in life Liz embarked on a career in construction and went on to become successful within the field but through her own generational experiences of loss, poverty and abuse Liz knew first hand the effects this project would have on families. This is when she took the risk to blend both her lived experience and business skills to set up a social enterprise that would teach local people to become sustainable whilst serving their community. Her work became recognised nationally from 2011 when it received recognition from Senior Central Government Ministers and Liz was presented as the winner of the Lifesavers Award.

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Following the national success of The Roots Project, Liz began to work as a consultant to help planning and decision makers and senior ministers to plan, develop and project manage social funds and social investment to the grassroots communities. The aim was to bridge the gap between social investors and communities by using her social intelligence to mediate changes in systems that were proving to be inefficient. During this time Liz worked on the Big Venture Challenge social investment programme with Unlimited and was also listed in Richard Branson’s Top 100 Most Unseen Influential Women.

With new social leaders continuously emerging, Liz looks to spot these talents and work with the individuals to nurture their solutions to community issues via social enterprise models. Liz is particularly proud of her work done through faith and social enterprise models to guide church leaders on how to integrate their church vision with the social entrepreneurship sector.

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The Roots Project was rebranded in 2022 as Roots & Branches; the Branch known as the arm of the business that educates statutory organisations, funders, investors and housing associations with the tools to develop their teams and their communities by building strong and sustainable community leaders, with a specific focus on those who are neurodivergent, within the justice services, NEET and faith leaders.

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Over the years we have welcomed partners, consultants and developed teams to help mobilise the movement, building the Roots & Branches infrastructure with individuals who have their own skill sets and wisdom to add depth to the long term vision.