OPRN 2026 Annual Conference
From Search to Profile: Using Perplexity Pro for Defensible Prospect Research
For three years, I ran a one-person prospect research shop at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where every research hour mattered and every claim had to be defensible. Today, I’m building a prospect research function at Cleveland State University, creating new processes and systems to support seven gift officers and a VP of Advancement. Across both roles, one lesson stands out: prospect researchers don’t need more AI tools—they need better research workflows.
This session demonstrates how Perplexity AI Pro can be used as a citation-first research engine to produce faster, verifiable prospect research without sacrificing accuracy or professional judgment. Rather than focusing on AI hype, this presentation walks through a practical, repeatable workflow that separates search, verification, and synthesis - significantly reducing hallucinations and rework.
Attendees will learn how to structure Perplexity Pro for prospect research, apply simple verification standards (confirmed vs. unverified), and translate results into a clean, CRM-ready prospect profile that gift officers can act on. The session emphasizes accessible and ethical AI use, making it especially relevant for solo researchers and small shops operating without enterprise budgets or technical support.
Participants will leave with a budget-friendly research framework, reusable research prompts, and clear guardrails for responsible AI use that can be implemented immediately—using only a nominal monthly subscription ($5 - $17) and existing professional judgment.
Presenter: Ryan Clement
Prospect Research Director at Cleveland State University
Keeping Your Ducks in a Row… and Your Geese, Too: Practical Prospect Management Strategies
Prospect management works best when it’s both structured and flexible. In this session, we’ll talk through practical approaches to managing prospect portfolios, proposal strategy, metrics, and data integrity—while acknowledging the realities and pressures faced by frontline fundraisers. The goal isn’t perfection; it’s clarity, alignment, and momentum. Attendees will leave with ideas they can apply immediately to keep prospects moving forward and teams working together more effectively.
Presenter: Elise Martin
Associate Director, Prospect Development at Miami University
Elise has over 10 years of experience in advancement fundraising and prospect management within higher education. She currently works in prospect management, where she partners closely with development officers to support portfolio strategy, proposal tracking, and metric reporting. Elise holds an MBA from Miami University’s Farmer School of Business and brings a practical, collaborative approach to prospect management—focused on helping teams stay organized, aligned, and effective.
Prospect research is a cognitively demanding field—requiring focus, pattern recognition, and adaptability. These are often strengths of neurodivergent professionals, yet traditional workflows and expectations can unintentionally create barriers.
Led by a neurodivergent researcher with nearly two decades of nonprofit experience, this session explores how to design inclusive, flexible research environments where all kinds of thinkers can thrive. We’ll examine common challenges—like time blindness, sensory overload, and communication mismatches—and offer practical strategies for building workflows that support diverse cognitive styles.
Whether you identify as neurodivergent, manage a team, or want to foster a more inclusive research culture, this session offers tools, language, and a fresh perspective on what it means to do research well.
Presenter: Jessica May
Development Analyst at Mid-Ohio Foodbank
Jessica May, MPA (she/her), is a neurodivergent prospect researcher with 19 years of experience across the nonprofit sector, including foodbanking, small business resources, adult learning, and adaptive training design. She brings a unique blend of lived experience and professional expertise in workflow design, accessibility, and inclusive team culture.
Age of the Builders
There are increasing reports of companies where 100% of the code is being written by AI agents — and yet the engineers remain. Why? Because taste, vision, and the ability to know what's worth building still can't be automated. The tools have changed. The role of the human hasn't disappeared — it's been elevated.
But that elevation demands a shift. In this session, Michael Pawlus and Corbin Smith will make the case that we've entered the "Age of the Builders" — an era where the wall between a great idea and a working solution has crumbled, and the people best positioned to walk through that opening aren't necessarily coders. They're the domain experts who understand the problems worth solving. The prospect researchers who know which questions to ask.
Michael will lay out the broader landscape — how the future of work is shifting, what it means for professionals in data-driven roles, and practical tactics for positioning yourself to lead in this new era. Corbin will bring it home with concrete examples from prospect development, showing how AI agents are already transforming the work and how professionals are building specialized tools that solve real problems in their shops.
You'll walk away with a framework for rethinking how you add value in a world where execution is increasingly handled by machines. The future of work isn't about competing with AI — it's about learning to lead it. This session will challenge how you think about the work you do and inspire you to start building.
Presenter: Michael Pawlus
Data Scientist at The Ohio State University
Michael Pawlus is a Data Scientist in External Affairs at The Ohio State University, where he leads AI implementation and infrastructure for fundraising operations. With a career path that spans public relations, librarianship, teaching English in South Korea, and prospect research, Michael brings an uncommon breadth of perspective to the intersection of data science and advancement. He has spent over a decade applying machine learning, NLP, and predictive modeling to fundraising — first in R, now increasingly in Python and Databricks — and is currently focused on building AI agent workflows, governance frameworks, and tools that put the power of AI directly into the hands of non-technical colleagues. Michael has presented at APRA International, DRIVE, and regional conferences, and was featured as an expert in fundraising analytics in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Michael is also the author of the book Hands-On Deep Learning with R.
Presenter: Corbin Smith
Prospect Research Consultant at The Ohio State University
Corbin Smith is a Prospect Research Consultant at The Ohio State University, where he supports four advancement units through prospect research and analysis. He brings seven years of experience in the world of prospect development, with four years in his current role, and approaches emerging technologies from a practical, grounded perspective. Initially a skeptic—and at times an unwilling participant—in the AI boom, Corbin has since adapted and come away with a renewed view of how these tools can meaningfully support our work. Today, he is especially interested in how AI and automation can help research professionals build smarter, more efficient workflows without losing sight of judgment, context, and craft. Corbin is a first-year member of the OPRN Board.
Chapter Sponsor Presentation: DonorAtlas
If you've spent hours manually digging through scattered, unreliable donor data, it's time you met DonorAtlas: the world's first donor research tool built from the ground up with AI.
Built by former fundraisers and Harvard data scientists, DonorAtlas launched a year ago and is already helping hundreds of organizations raise more and save time.
Presenter: Will Schrepferman
CEO, DonorAtlas
Will Schrepferman is the co-founder and CEO of DonorAtlas, the first prospect research tool built from the ground up with artificial intelligence. His fundraising journey began at thirteen when he raised his first dollar. After graduating from Harvard—while working part-time in fundraising throughout his studies—he launched DonorAtlas. In just over a year, their team has partnered with hundreds of fundraising & prospect research teams to help them work smarter, save time, and raise more!