A consistent and engaged database

When Solihull School launched with ToucanTech in 2019, they had around 1,070 members online. Today that number is 3,591 — part of a total database of 18,169 records stretching back to early-engagers from the 1940s.

Clean data is the foundation everything else is built on. Alumni in their 60s, 70s, and 80s are the most active segment, with a natural re-engagement point in people's late 40s and early 50s.

Knowing that pattern shapes what gets sent, to whom, and when. and the results are measurable:

• Alumni can choose the channel for the annual alumni-magazine (returns of which have dropped considerably to fewer than 100 out of 5,500 sent)
• Email open rates have climbed from 49% in 2020 to around 70% today
• Event announcements, and community news consistently perform strongest.

The events module is central to how the team operates day to day. Registration, attendee data, donor status, user group — all centralised in one place. It's used for everything from alumni gatherings to whole-school occasions like the Thanksgiving service. Lynn logs in every day and tracks activity consistently across the community.

726 mentors and counting

The FUTURES Friday Seminar series brings recent alumni back to school as speakers, presenting to current students on career paths, university experiences, and early professional life.

The careers platform now hosts 726 mentors. With powerful filters within their ToucanTech database, Solihull school can:

• Identify alumni aged 20 to 40, making it easier for students and careers staff to find connections whose experience is most relevant.
• See the conversations between mentees/mentors.
• Go through their mentor list to find applicable mentors for specific year grades and occupations.

For students under 18, introductions are made through parents rather than direct platform access — a practical approach that keeps the programme safe without losing its value.

Where alumni give back

Solihull's primary fundraising focus is the Silhillian Fund, which supports bursary places. The ToucanTech platform is central to how the team identifies and stewards donors — major donors (those giving over £10,000) and legacy donors are individually flagged in the system, making it straightforward to pull reports and prepare for events like the school's annual legacy and major donor dinners.

When the Synergy capital campaign ran alongside the core fund, all donor data was imported and tagged in ToucanTech so the full picture stayed in one place.

Looking ahead

The focus going forward is deepening the careers programme — making the mentor database easier to navigate for students and careers staff, and growing alumni participation on their FUTURES Fridays.

On the fundraising side, the priority remains the Silhillian Fund and building a sustainable pipeline of mid-level and major donors.

With five years of clean data behind them, the team is well placed to make smarter decisions about who to engage, when, and how.

Advice for other schools

Invest in data quality: An annual data cleanse transforms how reliably you can reach your community.

Use the events module properly: The time saved on registration and attendee management adds up fast, and the data you capture makes every future event smarter.

Think in decades, not campaigns: Solihull's alumni community spans alumni from the last over 70 years. Building a platform that meets people where they are — whether that's at 25 or 75 — is what creates engagement that lasts.