Tyler Spencer, MSc, PhD

Non-profit Leader

Mexico City

Mexico, North America

Connect:

Cohort Year:

2018

Bio

Tyler Spencer founded Grassroots Health (formerly The Grassroot Project) in 2009 when he was a student-athlete at Georgetown University. He had worked for several summers training soccer players in South Africa to use soccer as a tool for HIV prevention (Grassroot Soccer). Upon returning to DC for his final year of school, he learned that 1 in 20 DC residents were living with HIV, and he wanted to mobilize his teammates and fellow college athletes to support the city’s efforts in reducing new infections among youth. With help from teenagers at a youth drop-in center in DC, he adapted the South African curriculum to be effective in DC, and he recruited 40 athletes and four middle schools to take part in the initial pilot program of Grassroots Health. The organization has grown from there, and Tyler led its strategic vision and partnerships, fundraising, and program evaluation.

Today, Tyler consults with philanthropic and nonprofit leaders to accelerate social impact in social impact strategy, fundraising, and evaluation.

Tyler has a Ph.D. in Public Health and an M.Sc. in Evidence-Based Social Intervention from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He holds a BA in International Health and Sustainable Development from the University of Virginia, and he holds post-graduate credits in social policy from Georgetown, where he dropped out shortly after starting Grassroots Health. For his leadership at Grassroots Health, Tyler has been named a World Economic Forum Young Global Shaper, a Skoll Associate Fellow in Entrepreneurship, and a Senior Atlantic Fellow in Health Equity by the Atlantic Institute.