Founded in 2019, the story of Square Roots Collective starts much earlier, in 1991, with a man named Michael Bontrager. 

Mike, as everyone calls him, is the son of a Mennonite minister who moved from nearby Lancaster County to Illinois when the time came for college, and eventually joined the finance industry—but not in the traditional sense. 

After working on Wall Street and realizing the status quo was to do what was best for the bank’s bottom line instead of the client’s, Mike had a vision of doing business differently. He imagined a company where transparency was baked into the culture and where trust maximization, not profit maximization, was the ultimate goal. 

So in 1991, he moved his wife and daughters from New York City to Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, to start his new venture in their garage. In time, Chatham Financial became a beacon for doing business differently and made trust with clients its operating ethos. 

Mike’s knack for entrepreneurship partnered with his guiding belief that there’s always a way to change the status quo and his deep love for Kennett Square formed the foundation for Square Roots Collective. 

Today our organization builds local businesses as a force for good by creating community togetherness and economic sustainability to fund important non-profit work in Southern Chester County. It might sound lofty, but we have a big vision: that the communities in our region work together intentionally to help everyone have the opportunity to thrive.