Frequently Asked Questions

Yes! - just like in when giving a gift card, the full amount goes directly to the recipient. This is why we charge two additional small fees upon checkout - one is a merchant fee to the company that processes the payments for us (Stripe is our merchant), the other is a handling fee of $1.49 to keep our small company running. We want 100% if the contribution to go straight to the recipient every time.

The perfect gift is the gift of choice. Recipients can choose eGift cards for the following merchants:

• Target
• Kroger Stores
• Kohls
• Starbucks
• Amazon
• Apple
• Nordstrom
• AirBnB
• Darden Restaurants
• Doordash
• Bath and Bodyworks
• Sephora
• Caribou Coffee
• Ulta Beauty
• Best Buy
• Uber
• Lowe's
• Panera
• Barnes & Noble
• REI
• Visa eGift Card

There are two fees at checkout. The first is the merchant/bank fee to process the payment. We are a small company and these fees can really add up. We ask that you work with us over the long run and as we grow, we can negotiate lower bank fees, and ideally, we could find a way to eliminate those upon checkout. The other fee is a $1.49 processing fee. We charge this to run the service, including our engineering and development costs, keeping your information secure, servers, the website, etc - basically, the cost of doing business.

When organizing an Appreciation, you, the organizer set an appreciation date, assigned a recipient and provided their email address. The Appreciation Company uses this information to send a nicely formatted email to the recipient in the afternoon (between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Pacific) with the details of how to access their Appreciation Album. Albums include all of the notes that were written and the balance that was collected by the contributors.

We only capture a single email address per user profile. If you have a work email and a personal email and wish to organize, contribute, or receive appreciations from both email addresses, you will need to create two accounts on the platform. We do this today to simplify the management of accounts and keep costs of building and maintaining the platform low. We are aware of situations where combined accounts could be beneficial and will take that benefit into consideration for future enhancements.

Yes, and this is one use case that The Appreciation Company was exactly created for. We understand that lives are busy and planning ahead just doesn't always happen. You can organize an event at the sidelines of a game and simply txt or email the event link to the parents who are there with you. They can type a note and contribute to the coaches balance immediately - no cash on hand required. At the end of the game, thank coach; do a 2, 4, 6, 8 cheer with the players and let coach know (and send a txt or email) that she has an appreciation waiting for her here at The Appreciation Company. The only thing she needs is to know what email address you used for her as a recipient. Easy peasy!

Yes - anyone who has registered on the site can organize an appreciation. Simply sign up; organize a new gift and share the link, send an SMS using the template or send an email using the template provided - edit the text from templates as you desire.

BONUS - The Appreciation Company supports complex structures like whole schools with multiple classrooms and  sports leagues with multiple teams by age group. We have a way to load all of that up easily and an organization administrator can verify all of the details and co-manage the process with The Appreciation Team. If you are organizing for a complex group with multiple structures - contact us and we'll get that arrange with you in a matter of minutes. We simply need the following information (typically in an excel file): First name, last name, email address, mobile phone number (for reminders) and the name of the team the person is assigned to.

As a recipient of a gift from a group, you will receive a link via email from us at The Appreciation Company on the date the appreciation gift has been set to be sent. We send notifications to the email provided by the organizer of your group. If you believe you are a recipient of a gift and have been an organizer or recipient in the past, a different email may have been provided. Contact us and we can track this down for you.

There are a number of ways: simply email us, set up a meeting, or contact us with a message that describes your feedback.