SpencerCreo Foundation is a small family foundation based in Vancouver, British Columbia. It supports grassroots initiatives through grants and community partnerships, focusing on education and training, inclusive employment, harm reduction, and life stability for people facing barriers. The foundation offers pilot projects, support programs, and funding to select nonprofits and social enterprises. View SpencerCreo Foundation's website for more information.
SpencerCreo Foundation is a Vancouver-based family foundation that combines direct frontline services with strategic grantmaking. Its core aim is to create and support transformative opportunities for individuals who face barriers related to employment, housing instability, mental health, and substance use. The foundation works through a mix of grants to selected organizations, pilot projects, and embedded support programs that are co-designed with community partners.
SpencerCreo provides grants to a limited list of organizations that focus on transformational change through education and training, employment, and family or life stability supports. These organizations include grassroots groups, social enterprises, and nonprofits that are aligned with harm reduction, inclusive employment, and peer-led approaches. In addition to financial support, the foundation collaborates closely with partners to test new models and scale successful initiatives into community-embedded programs.
The foundation’s work revolves around several interconnected themes:
SpencerCreo centers people with lived and living experience. Its Support Workers program provides wraparound, person-led care that helps individuals navigate complex systems such as social assistance, health and housing services, legal processes, and employment pathways. Participants are supported to pursue objectives like returning to school, maintaining work, rebuilding family connections, and achieving stability and safety.
Through its peer-focused “Power of Peers” approach, the foundation co-designs projects with community programs, social enterprises, housing providers, and health services. Peers act as designers, facilitators, and leaders, shaping workplace accommodation practices, trauma-informed training, and evaluation frameworks that reflect real-world experiences. These efforts aim to reduce turnover, increase engagement, and strengthen participants’ sense of belonging.
Founded in 2011 by Ken Spencer, SpencerCreo Foundation initially expressed its engaged philanthropy through grants, partnerships, and the SpencerCreo Centre, a hub that offered affordable offices and gathering spaces for small nonprofits in Vancouver. For more than a decade, the Centre fostered collaboration and helped build the city’s social impact community.
When redevelopment led to the closure of the Centre in late 2024, the foundation shifted to channel its resources more directly into community work and partnerships. This transition reflects an ongoing commitment to grassroots initiatives, peer leadership, and practical, system-changing projects that help individuals and organizations thrive.
As a small but specialized team, the foundation maintains close relationships with peers, frontline workers, social enterprises, nonprofit organizations, researchers, and health authorities. Many ideas emerging from this network become pilots that, when successful, evolve into permanent, community-embedded programs. Alongside funding and program delivery, SpencerCreo shares its experience through workshops and consultation, contributing to broader learning about inclusive employment, harm reduction, and peer-led practice.