CATALYST · LEADERSHIP READINESS

AI capability, built into leadership.

Philanthropel builds bespoke agentic systems for the third sector — built with your team, on your data, and yours to run. Catalyst is where that starts: a programme that prepares chief executives, boards and senior leaders to lead with AI, working directly on the decisions already sitting on their desk.

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IN OUR ORBIT — ADVISOR AND FOUNDER EXPERIENCE

Why Catalyst

Every non-profit leadership team is being asked to have a position on AI. Few have been given the tools to judge where it adds value, where it introduces risk and how it should be governed. Catalyst closes that gap at the leadership level, where decisions about adoption, investment and accountability are made.

How a programme unfolds

Understand your context

It starts with your organisation, not a curriculum. A short set of questions helps us understand your priorities, challenges and ambitions before we design the programme.

Build around real work

Your programme is shaped around your organisation's priorities, data, constraints and mission. Live projects and decisions from your team's desk become part of the learning.

Work with the right people

Sessions begin with senior leadership and can extend to the people responsible for putting AI into practice. They are scheduled around leadership and governance calendars, with your organisational data kept confidential.

Move from literacy to judgement

Leaders learn to identify where AI belongs in their workflows, question its outputs, govern its use and make better decisions with it. Understanding AI is the starting point. Knowing how to lead with it is the capability Catalyst builds.

What leaders leave with

Clarity on where AI belongsA leadership team that knows which decisions and workflows AI can strengthen, and where human judgement must remain central.
Confidence to question AIA board and executive team equipped to interrogate AI recommendations, proposals and investments rather than simply accept them.
A position on governanceClear principles for how your organisation approaches data, risk, accountability and procurement.
A shared language for AIA common vocabulary across leadership and key teams, so conversations about AI lead to decisions and action.

Format

Live sessions shaped around leadership and governance calendars.

Grounding

Built from your organisation's priorities, data and real-world challenges.

Status

Live with organisations across the sector.

What we build

Bespoke agentic systems, built around how you already work.

Not software you licence and then bend your organisation around. We build the agentic capacity to run these functions inside your organisation, on your data, your processes and your constraints. The system is built with your team rather than delivered to them, and it stays yours to run.

Donor engagement

Agents that hold every supporter relationship in view and act on it: personalised approaches, timed follow-ups and next steps drawn from what your team already knows, at a scale no manual process reaches.

Campaigns and supporter marketing

Systems that plan, draft, segment and run appeals end to end in your house voice, and carry what each audience responded to into the next campaign rather than starting again.

Prospect research

Agents that read across public records, giving histories and stated interests to surface the people with genuine affinity for your cause. Each name arrives as a worked profile: why them, why you, and the route in.

Grantmaking

For funders: intake, triage, assessment and reporting run against your own criteria, so programme staff spend their time on judgement rather than administration.

Scholarships and awards

Application, review and selection as one system, with eligibility, scoring and panel workflow built around your rules rather than a vendor's defaults.

Employee giving and volunteering

Corporate giving, matching and volunteering handled end to end, with the reporting a CSR team is asked for already assembled rather than reconstructed each quarter.

Membership and visitor operations

For arts and cultural organisations: ticketing, membership and the supporter relationship behind them joined into one system, instead of three that do not speak to each other.

Catalyst is how the people who will use these systems learn to lead with them. The capability and the system are built together, or neither holds.

What clients say

Evidence over adjectives. The work speaks in our clients' words.

The value made sense financially

Marco VitaleFINANCE DIRECTOR

The capability stayed with our team

Beatrice OwusuFOUNDING TRUSTEE

They understood what we were building

Monisha ThyagarajanCREATIVE PRODUCER · AWEDACIOUS ORIGINALS

They deeply understood how nonprofits work

Yuki SatoPROGRAMME DIRECTOR

More time with donors, finally

James TurnbullMAJOR GIFTS OFFICER

We could pursue more opportunities

Amara DialloFOUNDER · GLOBAL SOUTH NGO

Ten years of data became useful

Jae-won ParkHEAD OF STRATEGY

Our trustees started asking better questions

Sarah KimaniGOVERNANCE LEAD

Donor follow-up became much easier

Anika SharmaMAJOR GIFTS

We found the right partners faster

Robert EllisonDIRECTOR OF PARTNERSHIPS

Practical solutions which work

Abhinav BansalRETAIL ADVISOR & OPERATOR · ALIXPARTNERS

Made a complex change feel manageable

Arun MirchandaniMANAGING DIRECTOR, HR

We saw opportunities we'd missed

Kwame BoatengPARTNERSHIPS

The efficiency justified the investment

Lin ZhaoFINANCE LEAD

It understood our sector and audience

Nkechi ObiCOMMUNICATIONS LEAD

Gave our board something concrete

Joseph MensahTRUSTEE

We stopped rebuilding bids from scratch

Peter NakamuraHEAD OF BIDS

They understood our operating reality

Yusuf KarimCOUNTRY DIRECTOR

Finally, something built around programmes

Fatima Al-RashidPROGRAMME LEAD

We moved from brief to live

Ines FerreiraGRANTS MANAGER

It made the process much simpler

Vaishnavi BadamHR OPERATIONS · MEDWAY CARE SERVICES

Governance stayed part of the conversation

Margaret DoyleCOMPANY SECRETARY

Our board got clearer on the capability of AI

Takeshi MoriBOARD CHAIR

Our case for support got sharper

Hannah VogelHEAD OF PHILANTHROPY

It understood how our funders think

Karim AzizDIRECTOR · MENA REGION

Better intelligence on the right funders

Ravi MenonPHILANTHROPY ADVISOR

We were part of building it

Grace MbekiTRUSTEE · GRANT-MAKING BODY

We knew where to focus

Kenji WatanabeCAMPAIGN CHAIR

Built for our sector, not adapted

Alan PritchardCHIEF EXECUTIVE

They got to the solution so quickly

Runjhun SrivastavaSTRATEGY & MARKETING

Evidence our trustees could act on

David OkonkwoDEVELOPMENT LEAD

They made the data make sense

Bani Ghei AhluwaliaMEDICAL AFFAIRS · NORDBERG MEDICAL

We got the bid out faster

Rafael DuarteDIRECTOR OF FUNDRAISING

Every application had a head start

Mei-Lin ChenHEAD OF GRANTS

Research our fundraisers could use

Hiroshi TanakaHEAD OF DEVELOPMENT

We could compete with bigger teams

Adaeze NwosuFOUNDER · WEST AFRICA

PHILANTHROPEL

The full bench

TEAM

Srishti Bakshi

Philanthropic strategist and technologist

Partner · Philanthropel

Turns fundraising practice into working systems — every build began with a problem met on the floor

TEAM

Anmol Pratap Singh

AI engineer and systems architect

Head of AI · Philanthropel

Builds the agentic infrastructure these systems run on, so each engagement starts further along than the last

ADVISORY

Ben Morton Wright

President & Group CEO, Global Philanthropic

Global Philanthropic Worldwide · International advisory

Anchoring the work in how philanthropy is actually commissioned and delivered worldwide

ADVISORY

Seymour Banks

Deputy Chair, Global Philanthropic Holdings

Global Philanthropic Holdings · Former Chair

Holding the venture to the governance standard the sector expects of its advisers

ADVISORY

Rohit Bakshi

Enterprise AI & product leader

Cisco · Box · Google · BCG

Turning sophisticated AI into practical, scalable intelligence for the sector

ADVISORY

Archana Ramana

Sales strategy & operations leader

Meta · Global technology

Helping build the operating models that take good ideas to scale

ADVISORY

Deepak Ramola

Wisdom historian & educator

Project FUEL · Stanford · MIT

Keeping human intelligence at the heart of what we build

ADVISORY

Abha Shri Saxena

Gender equality & development specialist

Global Center for Gender Equality · USAID · UN ecosystem · Global development

Ensuring the intelligence we build works for the communities it is designed to serve

ADVISORY

Lisa Heinrichs

Global campaigns & mobilisation leader

United Nations SDG Action Campaign · Global Goals

Bringing the lens of global movements to how ideas mobilise people and scale impact

Ready to lead with intelligence?

A short set of questions, three to five minutes, and it is how every Catalyst programme begins.

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If you lead a non-profit, a foundation, a family office or a philanthropic practice, tell us what you are working on. We reply to every serious note.