Photo Gifts for Donors

After thirty-plus years on staff, we have given our donors various gifts:  “Jesus” DVDs, books, CDs, bookmarks, flowers, candles, and more.   So, what was I going to do about our long-term major donors who have already received a half-dozen gifts over the years?  I decided to make a calendar of some of our best photography.   I have a little more extra time over the summer (or more than I would have in November and December) so I’ll start working on the calendars this month.  I’m going to make one calendar and then I will order six or so calendars every November for the next five years (to spread the cost out).  In this way, I will have given a calendar to all thirty of our top donors by 2015.  Mike and I love photography as a hobby, so we should be able to have enough nice photos for a calendar.

I’ve been making calendars using Snapfish.com for family Christmas gifts for the past several years.  I like the 8 1/2 x 11 inch calendars.  Snapfish has easy templates which allow up to three photos.  (see the August sample from our 2009 calendar above).   Some templates have a “scrapbook” background.  This size of Snapfish calendar also lets you put photos on the days, such as a photo of fireworks on July 4th and your photo on your birthday.  I don’t know if the smaller calendars allow you to do this.

You could also use Picasa to make collages and then use the collage in the single photo template, so you can actually have as many photos as you wish in this way.  For instance, you could have a portrait of each member on your campus team and make a collage for one of the months.  See my collage photo album for an example of collages.

Your photos for the months could be of your ministry location and/or action shots of your students, using the captions for prayer requests.  You could mark the Days of Prayer or other events on the days they occur so your donor can pray for Christmas conferences and Big Break.  And of course, you could just choose to do photos of your family.

Other ideas for gifts are also available at Snapfish.com: ornaments, mousepads, stationery, mugs, and more.

Let us know if you have a favorite online photo site.  Have you made a prayer calendar for your donors?  Also, we actually have never done a photo magnet or post card for donors.  If you have a company you recommend for magnets and post cards, please comment.

NOTE: I usually keep track of what gifts we’ve sent to our donors.  I have a basic plan of what gifts we will send for each milestone they reach, such as, a “Jesus” DVD after $5000 or 5 years.  (…and of course, I use TntMPD: I put a reminder in “Tasks” when it is time to send a gift and keep track after we send the gifts using “History” and “Groups”.  See this post about groups.)