Richard Spurling: Founder/Executive Director of ACEing Autism
Introduction
Richard Spurling is the Executive Director at ACEing Autism, a nonprofit organization that helps children with autism grow, develop and benefit from social connection and fitness through tennis programming. He founded ACEing Autism in Boston over 15 years ago. Since then, Spurling has expanded ACEing Autism’s programming across the nation. In his current role, he primarily works on the program side assisting in curriculum development, volunteer management, program quality and training. He also assists with donor cultivation and participates in public speaking engagements.
Spurling is originally from Europe and grew up playing tennis competitively. He earned a major in international business from Florida Atlantic University where he played on their tennis team for four years. Upon graduation, Spurling started working in finance. He worked as a financial advisor for over two years and didn’t enjoy the work. Still loving tennis, Spurling left the finance world to start managing tennis programs at clubs in Florida, Boston and Cape Cod. While working in tennis, he moved to Boston to attend business school at Babson University.
While attending business school and still working in tennis, Spurling married a pediatric neurologist, Shafali Jeste MD, who was about to complete her behavioral child neurology fellowship at Boston Children's Hospital where she specialized in autism and neurodevelopmental disorders at a time when support for autism in the U.S. was becoming more robust. During this time, Spurling and his then wife extensively discussed how they could help children with autism. Consequently, he was considering his next career move. They eventually realized there was a gap in recreational programming for autistic children and he and his then wife saw a potential opportunity for a tennis program for autistic children. This was the perfect endeavor for them given her background in autism, his passion for tennis and his presence in business school. Tennis also seemed to fit the needs of autistic children because they are able to learn individually while also socializing with other children. They recognized their idea would fit a niche space in the world; there was athletic programming for special needs children, but not strictly for children with neuro developmental disorders.
In the fall of 2008, Spurling and his then wife launched their first program in Boston. The peer learning model employed by ACEing Autism made sure the kids were not only receiving individual attention, but were also socializing with other kids their age. This unique approach resonated with the community and Spurling saw that it was possible to scale it: “Kids were making gains, parents loved it and the volunteers enjoyed it… all these different groups coming together to make this work.” In addition, “it was helping these kids cognitively, physically and emotionally. And parents were desperately seeking sports programs that would cater to their child's needs. It was a worthy challenge to design a program like this and now we have the means to scale and reach thousands of families!” After growing the program in Boston for 2 years, Spurling’s then wife got recruited to work at UCLA at the Center for Autism Research and Treatment (CART). So they moved to Southern California and, for the past 13 years, have grown ACEing Autism from Boston to Los Angeles.
It was very easy for Spurling to spread the word about ACEing Autism given his extensive network in the tennis world. This allowed many in the tennis community to learn about ACEing Autism early on and they received a lot of publicity because there was an appetite for nonprofits and charities within the tennis space. Initially, their model had them set up at tennis clubs, but as they grew into their community model, it was all about making it accessible to the volunteers who were mainly high school and college students. They now have programs at tennis clubs, high schools and colleges around the country. Most recently, they have started to work with specialized schools for kids with autism. Spurling notes that in LA, “we offer our program at The Help Group, one of the largest schools in the U.S. for children and adults with autism. We have provided a tennis professional who works with their PE teacher to deliver our tennis program several days per week. So that's a slightly different model. But it does mean that we reach a lot more kids and introduce them to tennis.”
Mentorship
During ACEing Autism’s infancy, as Dr. Jeste was starting to see families in the clinic, Spurling was in the process of receiving his MBA. Being surrounded by business/startup ideas really inspired him. He was able to pitch the idea for ACEing Autism in classes and hear feedback from fellow students. There was one professor who was very influential in the creation of ACEing Autism as she had previously played tennis at Georgetown and gave him a lot of confidence to move forward with the idea. She walked him through the planning stages and served as an overall soundboard and support system for Spurling. He also was able to collaborate with people in the autism space to help him think about the design of the program to make sure it was the most effective and fun possible.
Currently, he has mentors in the nonprofit space who help guide him, including his board members and the current president of ACEing Autism. Spurling has a background in tennis, but had never previously worked in the nonprofit sector. At times, he needs advice when thinking about the vision and priorities for the company, which is where his board members come in. This is especially true as he works to expand ACEing Autism’s impact. Lately, Spurling has been working on current priorities for the organizations such as “continuing the expansion and reach of our mission so that more families and children can have access; working with researchers to measure the positive outcomes we are seeing and advocate that more research dollars go toward life enrichment programs.”
Paying it Forward
As the Executive Director, Spurling believes organizational culture is rooted in how you treat people and being passionate about the central mission of the nonprofit. Cultivating a team environment is vital for Spurling based on his experience with various tennis teams. He even notes: “In some ways, I'm probably a better team player than a leader.”
