Tirion started because the tools available to prospect research teams were either prohibitively expensive or hopelessly outdated. We're building the alternative.
Small colleges and nonprofits do manual Google searches. Large universities pay six figures a year for incumbent vendors. The gap between those two worlds is where Tirion lives.
We combine AI with public data sources — property records, SEC filings, FEC contributions, IRS 990 data, and more — to deliver deeper insights at a fraction of the cost. Every data point links to its source. Every claim is traceable.
Tirion isn't a lookup tool. It's an intelligence platform that connects dots across fragmented public records and delivers complete pictures of your prospects. We also offer an API for teams that want to integrate Tirion data directly into their own workflows.
John spent over 15 years in prospect development at Georgetown University, Northwestern University, and Rochester Institute of Technology. He led research teams, built prospect pipelines, and watched firsthand as small advancement offices struggled with the same data access problems year after year.
At Georgetown, as Senior Director of Prospect Development, he managed the research operation that supports one of the country's largest university fundraising programs. At Northwestern, he specialized in international prospect research — identifying and evaluating prospects across borders using public records, financial filings, and open-source intelligence methods.
Before higher ed, John interned at the U.S. Department of State, researching open-source intelligence on Eurasian and European affairs for the Chair of Eurasian Studies. He holds a B.S. in International Studies from Rochester Institute of Technology.
On the side, John builds things — both physical and digital. He runs a home lab with multiple servers and a managed network, where he taught himself Linux administration, PostgreSQL, Python data engineering, and cloud infrastructure across AWS, Digital Ocean, and Google Cloud. That tinkering became the foundation for Tirion: a 93 GB database built from scratch by collecting public records directly from county assessors, the SEC, the IRS, and the FEC.
We're onboarding a small group of advancement teams for early access. See how Tirion works with your prospect list.
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