San Antonio Christian Dental Clinic
A Deep Partnership Rooted in Trust
The Challenge:
San Antonio Christian Dental Clinic (SACDC) provides free, routine dental care to adults who are uninsured, underinsured, or facing homelessness across Bexar County. Founded in 1986 as a ministry of First Presbyterian Church, SACDC grew over the years until Haven for Hope invited the Clinic to move onto its campus in May 2009, into a full-size, state-of-the-art facility. Cielo Strategy Group has partnered with SACDC since 2015, and over time, we’ve become part of the family. As SACDC grew from a basement ministry into a full-service dental facility, its visibility and infrastructure hadn’t kept pace with its capacity. The Clinic needed a stronger digital presence and a way to educate the broader community on the importance of its mission. Behind the scenes, basic processes were still manual: online donations weren’t yet possible, and screening client applicants relied on paper rather than a system built to scale. As the Clinic’s ambitions grew, so did its need for a real fundraising program, a sustainable culture of philanthropy, and clarity about what the future should look like.
Our Approach:
Long-term partnerships let us get to know every aspect of an organization, and with SACDC, our work has grown and shifted right alongside theirs. We started by building the Clinic’s digital foundation: setting up and managing its social media accounts, establishing a process for accepting online donations, and replacing manual applicant screening with a streamlined online system. That stronger online presence increased brand awareness and helped SACDC tell its story to a wider audience. From there, we moved into fund development, building an annual fundraising plan with actionable strategies and supporting SACDC’s appeals from creative ideation through the final mailing, along with strategies for thanking donors well. We’ve supported major gifts efforts and the Clinic’s Big Give campaigns for several years running, helped design and facilitate donor engagement events, and provided ongoing graphic design support and coaching for the CEO and staff. We facilitated SACDC’s three-year strategic planning process, bringing together the Board of Directors, senior staff, and both internal and external stakeholders. One theme surfaced again and again throughout the sessions: where SACDC calls home matters. As facilitators, our job was to ensure every voice in the room was heard, and every perspective was genuinely considered as they wrestled with what’s next. They landed on four strategic priorities, naming financial sustainability and brand and identity as the foundation that had to come first.
From Our Partner:
“Cielo Strategy Group is part of our Clinic family. With our long-standing partnership, I have relied on their team as a steady support system – responding to our needs and flexing with us. They have elevated our storytelling and communications, guided us through annual fund development plans, designed and project-managed annual appeal mailings, coached us through grant proposals, facilitated Board sessions, and led a strategic planning process. They push us toward excellence and don’t settle for less.”
– GLORIA Z. CANSECO, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, SAN ANTONIO CHRISTIAN DENTAL CLINIC
The Outcome:
Together, we built the infrastructure that didn’t exist when we started: an online donation process, a digital applicant screening system, and an active, managed presence across social media. The Clinic’s fundraising program grew from occasional appeals into a coordinated annual plan, with strategies spanning year-end appeals, major gifts, donor stewardship, and participation in Big Give. And SACDC’s board has a clear, board-owned roadmap: get financial sustainability and brand and identity right first, before tackling the bigger question of place. Our long-term partnership with SACDC has since ended, but they still call on us to develop their end-of-year appeal. We are grateful to have stayed close to SACDC and to have been part of their story.