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| 9 Mar 2026 | |
| Written by ToucanTech Support | |
| Alumni Management |
The session began with an overview of recent ToucanTech product releases designed to reduce daily admin and help organisations engage their communities more effectively.
Recent updates spanned events, email, donations, and directory features - all aimed at making community management smoother while opening up new ways to connect with members.
Two additions in particular sparked some interesting discussion:
🔹 Event Discount Codes Organisations can now create and manage discount codes for events, making it easier to encourage attendance from specific groups — such as recent alumni, volunteers, or campaign supporters.
🔹 Visual Community Directories: A new, more visual approach to directories lets organisations spotlight different groups within their community — from career networking and business connections to donor walls and parent volunteers — making it easier for members to find and connect with each other.
Together, these updates reflect ToucanTech's ongoing focus on making community engagement simpler, more powerful, and more flexible for institutions of all sizes.
👉Read more about key platform's features for school development here
The most interesting bit was the diiscussion around how AI tools are beginning to change day-to-day work in development and alumni relations teams.
The conversation then turned to the accelerating pace of artificial intelligence. Powered by enormous large language models trained on trillions of data points, modern AI tools are now capable of producing research, writing, and analysis at remarkable speed.
Rather than replacing human expertise, the group focused on how AI can reduce the time spent on first drafts and preparation tasks. Some of the areas where AI is already proving valuable include:
AI can help summarise donor histories, analyse professional backgrounds, and surface useful conversation hooks ahead of meetings — helping development staff walk into conversations fully prepared.
Teams can use AI to generate multiple variations of appeal letters, critique previous campaigns, or produce early drafts of grant applications, thank-you letters, and impact reports.
AI tools can assist with event run sheets, seating logic, briefing notes for speakers, and tailored follow-up communications for different types of attendees.
Development teams can use AI to help translate raw fundraising data into clear narratives for leadership reports and board updates.Across all these examples, the biggest productivity gains often come from using AI as a “first-draft machine” — reducing the time required to move from idea to working content.
Alongside the opportunities, the discussion also touched on responsible data use when working with AI tools.
Best practices include disabling training features where possible, redacting personally identifiable information before sharing data, and using secure team accounts that prevent organisational information from being used to train public models.
As AI capabilities continue to evolve, the goal remains clear: use technology to save time on routine tasks, so teams can focus on the human relationships that drive successful fundraising and community engagement.
There were questions about the environmental impact of AI servers, and the issue of content creator rights - no immediate solve on these, but all agreed we need to be aware of how we use AI and transparent about what we use it for.
The afternoon closed with lively conversation, shared ideas, and a sense that both product innovation and AI are opening up exciting new possibilities for community teams everywhere.
Thank you to everyone who participated!
Curious how our newest AI features can transform your school's development work?
Book a demo with our team to explore how ToucanTech can help.
