How to Use Alumni Engagement Data to Drive Fundraising

According to ToucanTech's 2025 customer survey (from 100+ independent schools and unis), alumni who engage with their schools through events, emails, or online communities are 12 times more likely to donate compared to those who haven't engaged. 

Yet most schools track only who donated - not why they engaged in the first place.

This gap explains why many fundraising appeals fall flat: they target the wrong people, at the wrong time, with generic messages that fail to connect. Meanwhile, schools that track engagement data are building pipelines that convert community members into loyal supporters.

Schools need to capture, analyze, and act on the behavioral signals that predict giving - from email opens to event attendance to volunteer participation.

This guide explains what engagement data is, why it matters, and four uses of this data to improve your fundraising success.

What data do I have on my donors? 

Most advancement databases contain three types of donor information:

1. Demographic data:

🔹Year of graduation, parent status, geographic location
🔹Professional background, family connections to school
🔹Wealth indicators (where appropriate and compliant)
 

2. Transactional data:

🔹Donation history: amounts, dates, designated funds
🔹Gift Aid declarations and tax receipts
🔹Pledge commitments and payment schedules

3. Behavioral / engagement data (the most important piece) 

🔹Email engagement: opens, clicks, unsubscribes
🔹Website activity: page views, content downloads, portal logins
🔹Event participation: RSVPs, attendance, post-event surveys
🔹Volunteering: mentoring, career talks, committee involvement
🔹Social interactions: connections made, groups joined, messages sent
🔹Ad-hoc interactions: call with development office, campus visit, merch purchases

The first two categories tell you who gave and how much. The third tells you who's about to give—and how to engage them.

The correlation between engagement and philanthropy

The link between engagement and fundraising is measurable and substantial, but quite often sidelined.

On ToucanTech's internal customer research last year, we found:
'It takes an average of 18 engagement activities over 3 years before someone makes their first gift to a school.'

These touchpoints build affinity, demonstrate impact, and create the trust necessary for philanthropic support.

Sustained engagement, when monitored correctly, can help ‘predict’ donations: 

1. Email engagement signals 'interest':

Some schools in the ToucanTech network see their donors open almost twice as many emails as non-donors. This pattern holds whether schools and universities send monthly newsletters, campaign updates, or impact reports.

The key is in segmenting your communications is to send relevant comms:

🔹monitor which categories of content specific alumni engage with 
🔹use database filters to create alumni 'groups' 
🔹send relevant messages based on past engagement 

This approach will help you predict generosity, understand individual alum behaviour and cultivate the right individuals towards your giving programmes. 

👉Pro tip: Use ToucanTech's database filters and 'flexi groups' to easily segment alumni and share relevant comms. Learn more here

2. Events build affinity

Christ Church College, Oxford University found that their event attendees give at three times the rate of non-attendees.

Whether it's a reunion, networking evening, or campus tour, in-person connection strengthens emotional ties and creates natural opportunities to discuss support.

3. Schools with strong engagement programs raise more 

IDPE's 2025 Fundraising Impact Report also shared how schools that deliver more engagement events consistently achieve higher donor participation and raise more income. Relationships built and developed over time mature into philanthropic support.

Four ways you can use engagement data to improve fundraising

1. Identify Donor-ready prospects

The most likely first-time donors aren't necessarily the wealthiest alumni - they're the most engaged.
According to findings shared at CASE's 2026 Regular Giving & Legacies Conference held in Manchester, engagement signals are 'the most consistently powerful positive signs of giving'. 

As an example, you could search your database for:
🔹Contactable alumni who 'consented' to receive fundraising communications 
🔹Volunteers who've actively participated in the last 3 years
🔹Involvement with development staff (organized campus visits, alumni interviews)
🔹Digital engagement (portal logins, email opens and clicks)
🔹Updated contact details and regular responses to surveys
🔹Participation in multiple events in the last 3 years

These behavioral signals indicate active interest and emotional connection. For alumni that check all the above, look at an additional later of demographic data we spoke about above (are they current parents, established alumni or geographically located next to your school?)

This helps you find your 'most involved' alumni and prioritize outreach.

2. Segment donors into groups based on history and likelihood

Generic mass emails generate low open rates. Segmented campaigns tend to achieve much higher engagement, with tailored messages to what recipients actually care about, based on their demonstrated interests.

Example segmentation and messaging strategies:

Scenario 1: Alumni who consistently open bursary-related content 
Message: Personal story from current bursary recipient, invitation to fund a place
Call to action: "Your gift of £5,000 provides one term's education"

Scenario 2: Parents attending multiple school events this year 
Message: Highlight how their involvement enhances their child's experience 
Call to action: "Join our Regular Giving Programme to sustain these opportunities"

Scenario 3: Young alumni (5-10 years out) active in mentoring programmes
Message: Recognize their volunteer contribution, show pathway to financial support
Call to action: "Every contribution counts - Would you consider giving back £20/month?"

Pro tip: Use 'engagement flags' to segment and label individual alums, so you always know the status of your relationship with them.

3.Track the Donor Journey (through a visual pipeline)

Fundraising is a progression through relationship stages. Engagement data reveals where prospects sit on this journey.

Example Journey stages:

Stage 1: Aware
🔹Receives emails, opens occasionally
🔹May have attended one event years ago
🔹Action: Consistent, valuable content to build awareness

Stage 2: Engaged
🔹Opens 40%+ of emails, clicks through to content
🔹Attends events when schedule permits
🔹Has joined an online community, club or volunteered as a mentor 
🔹Action: Personal conversations with development staff or fund managers,  cultivation them with giving programs

Stage 3: Invested
🔹Attends events specifically to support school
🔹Volunteers time (mentoring, careers talks, committees)
🔹Advocates for school on social networks 
🔹Action: Specific appeal with specific project matched to interests

Stage 4: Committed
🔹Makes first gift or renews previous donation
🔹Increases gift size over time
🔹Refers other potential donors
🔹Action: Stewardship, impact reporting, recognition

4. Improve Donor Stewardship and Retention

Donors are more likely to give again when impact is clearly reported. But how do you know which impact stories resonate?

Engagement data answers this question:

Track content consumption:
🔹Which email topics generate the highest open rates?
🔹Which impact stories receive the most clicks?
🔹Which campaign pages get the longest session times?

Monitor response patterns:
🔹Do bursary 'recipient stories' trigger more donations than capital project updates?
🔹Does video content outperform written testimonials?
🔹Do alumni prefer hearing from current students or fellow alumni?

Use these insights to refine stewardship communications, ensuring donors receive the updates that are relevant for them. 

The opportunity cost of not leveraging engagement data

IDPE's 2025 Fundraising Impact Report identifies six critical success factors for school fundraising: active leadership, coherent strategy, sustained investment, consistent engagement, philanthropic culture, and demonstrable impact.

'Consistent engagement' appears as a standalone factor because without it, the other elements fail. 

Without engagement tracking:

🔹Leadership can't identify which prospects to prioritize
🔹Generic communications that fail to resonate (low response rates)
🔹Investment in development staff produces limited returns due to poor prospect qualification
🔹Donor attrition due to poor or irrelevant stewardship
🔹Philanthropic culture doesn't develop fast enough because fewer members feel connected

What Success looks like - few examples

Schools with mature development programs demonstrate the long-term value of engagement-driven fundraising.

Hymers College used engagement tracking to identify 1,500+ active community members, then converted 55 first-time donors during their first Giving Day, raising £85,000 for their bursary fund. 

👉Read the full case study here

Caldicott School tracked email engagement across 24 targeted messages during their 36-hour Giving Day, achieving 135 donors (56% first-time) and £134,450 raised - including £45,000 in matched giving unlocked by hitting participation milestones.

👉Read the full case study here

Both schools succeeded because they knew who was engaged, how they preferred to hear from the school, and when they were ready to give.

Getting Started: A 4-week plan to smarter fundraising

If your school isn't currently tracking, or making proper use of the engagement we descirbed above, start here:

Week 1: Audit your current data

🔹What information does your database capture?
🔹Can you run reports on email opens, event attendance, website activity?
🔹Are these data points connected to individual donor records?

Week 2: Define the engagement metrics you will track

🔹Which activities do you organise that could indicate affinity? (events, special interest clubs, mentoring?)
🔹How will you score or judge engagement 'levels' for each activity?
🔹What thresholds signal "cultivation-ready" prospects

Week 3: Set up cohesive tracking

🔹Tag event attendees in your database
🔹Record 'engagement' activities against your donor records
🔹Capture all engagement, giving and payments data in one place

Week 4: Run your first segmented campaign

🔹Identify your 'most engaged' segment (e.g., "opened 50%+ of emails in past 6 months")
🔹Send them a targeted message matched to their demonstrated interests
🔹Compare response rates to previous unsegmented campaigns

This foundation will immediately improve your targeting and begin building the behavioral insights that drive major gifts over time.

ToucanTech helps you address this gap between engagement and fundraising data - helping you identify, engage and steward your prospects. The all-in-one database, communications, events, and fundraising is designed specifically for schools and university development teams, .

With 500+ institutions using the platform globally and a 4.9/5 rating on major review sites, ToucanTech has demonstrated both capability and reliability. 

👉Hear from other development teams using ToucanTech. Capterra | G2

👉 Schedule a demo to see how the platform can help you improve fundraising efforts for your institution. 

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