ABOUT US | 501ops | United States

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Peter Swanson grew up in a small town in western New York where there was still a fire whistle to sound an emergency to the community of volunteers. From an early age hearing the whistle blow, Peter became fascinated with joining the fire service. As soon as he could – the day after his 17th birthday – Peter signed up to be a volunteer responder. His time in the fire service led to an internship in the Department of Emergency Medicine while in college. His first task was spending his summers in the basement of various hospitals digging through endless paper medical charts. Laborious, tedious work that resulted in changes in emergency care. He saw first-hand how data can actually improve the lives of real patients, and he was fascinated at the connection between the analysis and practice.

Fast forward. After graduate school, Peter accepted a data analyst position in public finance. He witnessed how difficult it was for nonprofits and social ventures to get the funding they needed to do more good. So, he left finance to go into IT as he thought he could help nonprofits be more effective by getting more technology. But, he learned quite the opposite. Nonprofits didn’t need more technology – they needed support putting good tech into practical use. There had to be a better way.

And the idea of 501ops was born.

That was in 2014, and he started much like he began: picking up manilla file folders of information and manually inputting it into an enterprise system for his clients. Since then the company has evolved dramatically. Most nonprofits are used to dealing with the limitations of technology, and change their processes to make do with the limitations. Our approach is different.

We know that to optimize the power of analytics, we must understand the day-to-day operations of the nonprofits we serve.

How It All Began

How it all began

Our Leadership

CEO & Co-Founder

Peter Swanson

Peter Swanson, a former quantitative analyst in public finance, is a visionary leader who bridges the gap between analytics and business application. He has a BA in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the acclaimed University of Rochester and is published multiple times in peer-reviewed medical journals as a clinical research analyst. Peter obtained his Master’s in Public Administration from University of North Texas as a Hatton W. Sumner Scholar. His 10 years' experience in the field ranges from start-up tech to banking and health care including as a graduate of the Dallas-based Forbes Top 10 Tech Wildcatters accelerator.

Chief of Strategy

Dan Routman

Dan Routman is a business development executive, entrepreneur and investor. Dan led business development for Mark Cuban’s Broadcast.com (sold to Yahoo in 2000) and served as associate general counsel of Ross Perot’s 1992 presidential campaign. Dan was President of PureDiscovery, artificial intelligence software (now Brainspace, recently acquired for $95M). Dan is former Chairman and Honorary Life Director of North Texas Public Broadcasting, Inc., and on the board of trustees of the Dallas Museum of Art, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Foundation and SMU’s Tate Lecture Series.

General Counsel & Co-Founder

Bob Wright

Bob Wright is a lawyer with numerous specialties including nonprofit law. He is UT Dallas professor of entrepreneurism and social ventures. He has served as CEO of two computer gaming companies that had successful exits. As a co-founder of Dallas Social Venture Partners and as the founding committee member of Ground Floor (United Way’s Social Enterprise Organization accelerator), Bob understands first-hand the challenges non-profits face to strengthen their infrastructure in the 21st century world of big data.