Tirion started with a simple observation: good data and honest analysis shouldn't require an enterprise budget. Smaller teams deserve real tools too.
The best advancement teams aren't always the biggest. Sometimes it's one or two people with good instincts and not enough hours in the day. Tirion is built for that reality — technology that handles the data wrangling so you can focus on the relationships.
We combine public data sources — property records, SEC filings, FEC contributions, IRS 990 data, and more — into linked, source-cited profiles. Every data point traces to its origin. Every confidence level is visible.
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 has spent over 15 years in prospect development at Georgetown University, Northwestern University, and Rochester Institute of Technology. His passion has always been bringing technology in to make things more efficient — using Python, SQL, and whatever tools are at hand to help teams do more with less.
At Georgetown, as Senior Director of Prospect Development, he manages 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.
Tirion is a one-person company. That's not a disclaimer — it's the point. Modern AI makes it possible for a single person with domain expertise to build things that used to require a full engineering team. We think that's worth being upfront about.
AI writes code alongside us. AI helps process and match records. AI assists with research and analysis. We use it extensively, and we label it everywhere — in our data confidence tiers, in our entity resolution pipeline, and yes, in building this very website.
We believe AI is a tool, like a hammer or a SQL query. What matters is the judgment behind it, the honesty about where it was used, and the willingness to verify what it produces. That's how we build.
We're onboarding a small group of advancement teams for early access. See how Tirion works with your prospect list.
Get early access