Secret Gifter is about spreading positivity through pleasure gained from giving gifts. It is a well established concept that doing something positive for another person is a good way of making yourself feel better. The added bonus of Secret Gifter is participants will also receive something in return. It is like Secret Santa but runs for longer, not just over the Christmas period. For example, for teachers, it usually runs from October to July. You can choose a timeframe that suits.
One person is the Master Gifter and creates an event. The Master Gifter can see all the pairs so does not usually get paired with someone. A code is shared for individuals to create a profile and join. After the sign up period, everyone that has joined will be randomly allocated a profile for another participant in that Gifting Event. The Gifter can see the Giftee profile but the Giftee does not know who their Gifter is. It is a little bit like Secret Santa but over a longer period of time, plus you receive a profile of information about the person to help with deciding what to get them. Gifters are then required to secretly give small gifts to their Giftees, usually once every six weeks as a minimum.
You should sign up with the intention of being a Gifter, not a Giftee. Yes you will receive the occasional gift but that is not the focus of Secret Gifter. Not everyone will want the commitment and that is fine, they can still benefit indirectly from the buzz of excitement associated with trying to give people secret gifts in the workplace without being discovered.
Secret Gifter is not about grand gestures and spending a lot of money or taking a lot of time. We recommend a minimum of something once six weeks plus Christmas and Birthday or any other special occasion (if these occur within the Gifting Opportunity time).
Creating an Event or joining an existing Event both require you to sign in or create an account so start with that then you will be shown the different options.
Once you have an account, you can create an Event and share the code for others to join.
If you have been given a code, you create an account and complete your profile. Then you enter the join code and wait until the Event start date. At this point you will have been paired with someone else and you will be able to see their profile and start secretly gifting.
Secret Gifter is not about expensive gifts or grand gestures. The focus is on being thoughtful and maintaining the element of surprise. A well timed note or card can be just as effective as a chocolate bar. Having said that, some people choose to spend a small amount or even slightly more on certain occasions such as Christmas or birthday's.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Dependent on the Giftee, some Gifters give silly or joke gifts:
You can set the recommended gift frequency to whatever you would like but we have found either monthly or every six weeks to be good choices.
All organisations are different and we usually find staff can be quite creative but in case you are not sure where to start, here are some ideas:
The role of Master Gifter is reserved for the person responsible for administering the process at your workplace. Traditionally, they do not join in because they make the pairs and deal with issues such as staff leaving and re-pairing being required etc. However, we realise that this is not always a popular option so we have added the option of managing the process without seeing the pairs so you can join in as well if you wish.
The Master Gifter will create the team and Opportunity then share the join code and sign up deadline. Once that deadline has passed they make the pairs (manually or automatically) and click a button to notify participants, who will be notified and can access the profile of their allocated Giftee.
While the Opportunity is running, they may send periodic reminders about sending gifts or activate the option to remind everyone who has not completed enough of their profile.
A session of Secret Gifter is called an event. It would usually run for nine or ten months but there is flexibility to fit in with the structure of your year. In schools, we tend to launch in October and run it to July.
If you are running it for staff at a school with a name commonly shortened, use that, with the year on the end. For example, you could have an event called 'NCA 2025'. The following year you would then have 'NCA 2026'. Currently there are no rules or restrictions on Gifting Opportunity names (please keep it appropriate) but it must be unique so the recommendation is something short associated with your work place followed by the year you are launching. This makes managing the different opportunities easier.
The code needs to be unique and hard enough to guess but easy enough for people to type in. It is a bit like a password so you could choose three random words and maybe include the year so people know next time it is out of date. Again, please keep it appropriate but other than being unique, there are currently no restrictions on your choice of code.
Once you have created your event, you need to email your staff with a link to Secret Gifter plus the code. They need to create an account on the site and create a profile. Once that is done, they also have to join the event using the code you chose. If they are not sure whether they have joined, they can check the home page for confirmation.
The process is as follows:
It is inevitable that staff will leave/want to join once the process has started. As Master Gifter it is up to you to see if you work round these problems but do not worry too much if you cannot. Here are some ideas that may be of use dependent on the situation:
At the end of the process you need to let your Giftee know who you are. Some smaller organisations when most staff have joined in, arrange a get together with one final gift and the Gifter's name inside. For others, they leave it down to individuals.
The Master Gifter has access to a button that will notify all Giftee's who their Gifter was.