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Turning centuries of alumni history into actionable insight
Christ Church, one of the oldest colleges at the University of Oxford and the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland, has long been a place of tradition and academic excellence. But like many institutions with centuries of alumni history, they faced a modern dilemma:- how to understand and grow alumni engagement when data is inconsistent, fragmented, or entirely missing.
Working with ToucanTech, Database Manager Teresa has helped implement a system that brings fragmented data into one place, connects dots between comms, events, and philanthropy, and empowers staff to take a truly data-driven approach.
Taking a magnifying glass to the data
Teresa led an initiative to take a closer look at the full spectrum of alumni involvement - from casual newsletter readers to major donors. Her passion for data and process improvement, honed through years in both treasury and development roles, was central to uncovering meaningful patterns and rebuilding trust in the data.
"We were struggling to understand the full picture of alumni engagement. Data lived in different places, and some activity wasn't being tracked at all."
From scattered records to clearer insights
Previously, alumni engagement data was housed in separate spreadsheets, email inboxes, ticketing tools, and personal notes. Some events or interactions - like college visits or merchandise purchases - never made it into the central database.
By consolidating alumni records and using one connected platform for the community website and CRM, Christ Church was able to:
- reduce the volume of missing engagement data
- improve consistency through defined processes
- make engagement visible at a glance on alumni profiles
The correlation between engagement and giving
In 2023, Teresa analysed engagement patterns across the alumni base - and found statistically significant links:
- Donors opened almost twice as many emails and had 70% more tagged activities than non-donors
- People who had attended events gave more than 3x as much, on average, as those who had not
These insights validated the team’s belief that engagement matters - and helped build a case for investing in more strategic alumni communications and events.
‘Vanity metrics' to actionable filters
Earlier, it was hard to quickly understand how connected an individual was - a challenge when preparing for donor meetings or looking to segment email lists.
With the new system, Teresa introduced custom tags and dynamic filters that group alumni based on live engagement criteria. Now, the team can:
- pull reports in minutes, not days
- filter by event attendance, content interaction, or 1:1 email activity
- track shifts in engagement over time
The story of 'Kate': mapping all touchpoints
One of their alumni, Kate, seemed lightly engaged at first glance - but digging deeper revealed a much richer picture:
- She emailed the development office
- Booked a family college visit
- Downloaded a fundraising report
- Attended a wedding in the cathedral
- Sent a LinkedIn message to a staff member
- Bought college merchandise as gifts
This kind of non-financial engagement - informal yet meaningful - can now be recorded and recognised alongside more traditional metrics.
A hub for ongoing connection
The Christ Church online community acts as the digital heart of their alumni engagement strategy:
- Event bookings, photo galleries, news, and publications are centralised
- Alumni can update their contact info, join mentoring programs, and browse archives
- All interaction feeds back to the central CRM automatically
"Now we can see what kind of engagement actually drives giving, and where to focus our energy."
Advice for other schools
- Don’t wait until your data is perfect - start tracking what you can and build from there
- Collaborate across teams to capture informal interactions and tell the full engagement story
- Use real examples to demonstrate the value of engagement (like Kate!)
