[UPDATED: July 6, 2023]

After forty-plus years on staff, we’ve given our ministry partners various appreciation gifts. Sometimes it’s hard to come up with new or creative ideas, especially when we’ve gifted the same people for decades.

Many of the following ideas are also curated from fellow Cru staff. I hope this post has some new ideas for you.

(You might need to do a little research before purchasing your gifts.  For instance, the postage to mail a little notepad is twice the price of the gift. These might be better given in person.)

Ideas for Appreciation Gifts for Ministry Partners

Ministry-themed Gifts

For Cru staff, your first stop might be the CruStore for ministry materials or CruCoolGear. CruCoolGear will ship to multiple addresses. Shop at the Cru store or at your campus store for mugs, journals, etc., to reflect your ministry.

If you travel, you may already bring home items with a global look. If you don’t go overseas, many local stores or websites may have some creative options for you.

Your friends will probably appreciate the “give it back” opportunities behind these gifts:

• Sserv began in 1949 and has enough variety that you should be able to find food, decor, etc. from their artisans and farmers.
• Ten Thousand Villages, another fair trade store, may have a store near you.
• For every bar of soap purchased, Hand in Hand donates a bar to a child overseas, plus a month of clean water.
• Article 22 offers products from war scrap by Laotian artisans, like this dove ornament.
• Affordable jewelry from Tne Noonday Collection is made by 28 artisans in 12 countries.

Whether or not you are in Cru City, find local items to send as reminders for your partners to pray for you and your work in your city. What is your city known for? Check out The Best Gifts from Every State in America. Some are pricey, but might spark an idea for you. I laughed at the potato-shaped soap from Idaho in a burlap bag. Fun idea.

What Do THEY Like?

Of course, combining ministry themes with your gifts is a great idea, but also be willing to give gifts according to your friend’s hobbies or interests. Maybe do some things together just to get to know them (but I’m getting ahead of myself… that topic is in part two, next week).

Read on for various suggestions; many of these are easily affordable. Some gifts can be purchased or handmade (I’ll indicate if you could make a gift with an asterisk.*)

Most of the Usual Ideas

• Books
  • Sent: Living a Life that Invites Others to Jesus by Heather and Ashley Holleman
  • God: Discover His Character by Bill Bright
  • When You Love a Prodigal by Judy Douglass
  • I Just Saw Jesus by Paul Eshelman
  • More Than a Carpenter by Josh and Sean McDowell
  • The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn
  • Jesus the King by Timothy Keller
  • Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon (Alistair Begg)
  • The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions
  • The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones
  • your favorites
• JESUS DVDs
• CDs
  • Scripture lullabies
• Bookmarks*
• Frames or framed art*
• Flowers
• Handmade gifts*
  • Needlework
  • Photography
  • Scripture coloring cards
  • Baked goods
  • Your artwork
• Candles and potpourri
• Soaps, lotions, and scrubs*
• Stationery*
• Food (candy, eating in or eating out, homemade treats, …)
  • Fruit baskets*
  • A selection of teas or coffee*
  • Check out the snacks at Graze.com (also a subscription service).
  • Spices from former staff at Savory Spice Shop, (Colorado Springs franchise by Cru alums).
  • All profits at Jane’s Short and Sweet help at-risk women (owner is Cru alum).
• Call FamilyLife to arrange for discounts for Weekend to Remember

Photo Ideas

Magnets

A common photo gift is a magnet. Staff recommended these companies (the first two accept staff account transfers):

• Chalkline
• PrayerLetters.com
• Overnight Prints
• Smartpress
• Vistaprint

Calendars

Make Your Own*

One summer, I decided to make a calendar of some of our best photography (a favorite hobby of ours) to send to our top partners. I created the calendar mid-year (so I wasn’t rushing through this in November). I order six or so calendars every December now. Spread out over the next five years, I will have given a calendar to all thirty of our top ministry friends. Because I have an account with Shutterfly, I don’t have to re-create the photos for this calendar each year. We’ll send these calendars to our long-term major partners who’ve already received a half-dozen other books, DVDs, etcetera, over the years. They love our “best photos” calendar.

Your photos for the calendar months could be of your ministry location and/or action shots of your students, using the captions for prayer requests. Alternatively, you could just choose to do photos of your family. If you’re an artist, make photos of your artwork. You know best what would appeal to your team.

Or make the entire calendar a prayer calendar. At the minimum, you could mark the Days of Prayer or other Cru events on the days, inviting your ministry partners to pray for Christmas conferences and Big Break.

I like the 8 1/2 x 11-inch calendars. I prefer to use Shutterfly, but other companies include Snapfish.com, Smartpress, and Vistaprint.

Other Photo Ideas

Are you creative with photo books*? Would highlights of your ministry or family be meaningful to your ministry partners?

With your photos, you can make playing cards, totes, mugs, puzzles, and other gifts*. Check out the gift ideas on Shutterfly and other sites.

I was very impressed by one staff couple’s idea of a cookbook* with recipes of all of the meals and snacks the students loved to eat at their home. They included a lot of pictures and captions of students and of their family. Brent shared that their ministry partners still talk about this cookbook ten years later.

Want a nicer photo gift? Check out Photo Barn for photos on wood, burlap, canvas,…

Digital Ideas

Of course, I had to dig up some digital ideas for you!

• Tile or other Bluetooth trackers help people find their lost or misplaced things. If you buy several, they’ll be under $20 each.
• Find out if your friends like to read. Send eBooks (or Books) from Amazon directly to them… no trips to the post office needed.
• Other tech accessories might work as gifts. This could be challenging if you don’t know your ministry partner well.

And More…

• Coasters, Mouse pads, …
• Ornaments* (maybe of your campus?)
• Key chains
• Stationery*
• Games
• I haven’t used Uncommon Goods, but they do seem to think out of the box.
• Check out engraved gifts by former staff at GoEngraved.
• Maybe you love something on Etsy.
• Gift baskets. See these hamper ideas if you’d like to make your own*.
• We live in Orlando, so Disney trinkets are available in local stores.

When Do You Send These?

I used to check over names at the beginning of every year to see who “hit a giving milestone” of a 5-year or a $5000 total increment (does that make sense?) and then I’d plan what to send to whom. I’ve let this go for a while and am catching up this year. I have a stack of books and things, so it’s just a matter of getting them out. (See Cru’s gifts guidelines for how much you can spend.)

I mail gifts from February to September. (Ideally, I’m done in June before USPS’ biannual postage rate increase.) If we limit our thank you gifts to December, our gift may “get lost” in a sense because of all the other gifts people receive at that time. Why not spread out your giving and surprise your ministry partners on a special occasion (Valentine’s Day, their anniversary, etc.) or “just because?” I hope you’ll come back to this post any time of the year.

Obviously, candles, chocolates, and perishables should not be mailed in the summer.

Next week, I’ll write part two, Things to Do with Your Ministry Partners. What do you do for a family who has everything or doesn’t want a gift? Maybe my ideas next week will help.

Do you have ideas to share? 

NOTES:

• Something to keep in mind: No gift cards. These, and gift certificates, are not reimbursable because they are “cash gifts.” When in doubt about a gift idea, contact Staff Services at (888) CRU-7233, option 2, 2 or by emailing staff.services at cru.org.
• I found many of the recommendations for this post through conversations on social media with Cru staff. I recommend joining the Workplace group, MPD – Journey Together. This group is for Cru Global staff. We have over 2,000 members who actively answer questions and pass along ideas for all things MPD.
• Our photo is from the calendar I made and was taken at Windsor Castle, London, England.

Appreciation Gifts for Ministry Partners by Sus Schmitt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.