GroupTogether: Making Gift Giving Simple And Meaningful

This article is sponsored by GroupTogether, where you can celebrate life’s special moments without the hassle.

We’ve all been there.

You’re about to leave for your child’s friend’s birthday party when you realize you have everything you need except the birthday present.

You knew about the party. The invitation has been on your calendar for weeks. You RSVP’d. You have absolutely no excuse for what is about to happen.

And yet somehow it is 10:37 a.m., the party starts at 11:00, no one has shoes on, and you have not purchased a gift.

So now you’re either raiding the emergency birthday gift stash, if you are the kind of mother organized enough to have one, in which case I salute you, or placing a Target pickup order like you’re defusing a bomb.

You get the gift.

Now you need to wrap the gift.

You find a gift bag in the back of a closet that has clearly already attended several birthday parties. There is exactly one sheet of tissue paper left in your house, and it does not remotely match the bag.

Whatever. We’re going with it.

Then you head to your stack of extra cards, because of course you have a stack of extra cards.

Baby shower. Thank you. Wedding. Another thank you. Sympathy.

Not a single birthday card.

So now you’re stopping at the grocery store on the way to the party.

Or, perhaps more realistically, you throw the gift, bag, and tissue paper into the car because you
can handle that part when you get there.

Cut to the parking lot.

You’re stuffing tissue paper into the bag from the driver’s seat while your child is in the back asking if there will be cake.

You hand them the birthday card you just bought.

“Write your name.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere.”

“Here?”

“Yes. Anywhere. We have to go.”

They write their name approximately six inches tall across the entire card.

Perfect. Personal. Charming. Let’s move.

And here’s the funny part:

We are all doing this for each other.

I am frantically buying your child a $25 toy on my way to their birthday party. Three weeks from now, you will frantically buy my child a $25 toy on your way to hers.

Maybe it’s time we rethink this whole thing.

Then There’s the Other Side of the Birthday Party

Now your child is the birthday kid.

The guests have gone home. There are crumbs everywhere. Someone’s juice box is upside down where a juice box absolutely should not be. Your child is running entirely on cake and adrenaline.

And you are staring at a pile of 15 or 20 birthday presents, thinking:

Where in the world am I going to put all of this?

Don’t get me wrong. I love celebrating my kids.

I love watching them open presents. I love seeing their faces when they get something they’ve been dying to have. I love that their friends picked something out for them and were excited to give it to them.

Giving gifts is fun.

But somewhere along the way, we collectively decided that every child attending a birthday party needed to arrive carrying a separate wrapped present.

Which means 15 families had to figure out what your kid might like, buy it, wrap it, remember the card and get it all to the party.

Then your child opens 15 gifts in about seven minutes, and you spend the next week trying to remember who gave what while finding permanent homes for it all.

There are duplicates.

There are things your child already owns.

There are things they will play with exactly once.

There are toys with 147 tiny pieces that you now have a personal vendetta against.

And eventually, some of it ends up in a donation pile with the tags still attached.

Everyone spent money.

Everyone did work.

And somehow, this system feels like it could use a little updating.

What If We Did It Differently?

Imagine instead that everyone coming to the party chipped in $5 or $10 toward one thing the birthday kid actually wanted.

Maybe it’s the giant LEGO set they’ve been talking about for months.

Maybe it’s a new bike.

Maybe it’s tickets to something fun.

Maybe it’s something bigger they’ve been saving for.

Instead of 15 random presents, everyone contributes toward one meaningful gift.

There is still the excitement of a birthday present. There is still the generosity. There is still the feeling of, “Look what everyone got you!”

There is just significantly less stuff.

And considerably less tissue paper.

The more I thought about this idea, the more I realized that birthdays are only one place where
we make gifting harder on ourselves.

Because if you have school-age kids, you already know where else this shows up.

Teacher gifts.

Coach gifts.

Class gifts.

Holiday gifts.

End-of-year gifts.

And inevitably, somebody has to volunteer to organize all of it.

“I’ll Collect the Money!”

I’ve been the class mom.

I actually love doing it. I love making teachers feel appreciated. I love organizing class parties and making things special for the kids.

But I have also learned something very important:

Never underestimate the administrative complexity of a group gift.

It always begins innocently enough.

“We should get her something!

Absolutely

“I can organize it!”

Famous last words.

Now you’re collecting money from 15 families.

You’re checking Venmo against the class list. You’re trying to remember whether someone gave you cash at pickup. You’re sending the first reminder.

Then the second.

Then the third “just a friendly reminder!” text, with an exclamation point and a smiley face so everyone knows you are VERY CASUAL about the fact that you have somehow become a debt collector over a teacher gift.

Then you need to actually buy the gift.

Someone hasn’t paid yet, so maybe you front the difference.

Then there’s the card.

You need everyone to sign it, but preferably without the teacher seeing it.

So now a birthday card is quietly traveling between parents like classified government information.

Someone takes it home.

Someone else thinks another parent has it.

Eventually comes the inevitable group text:

“WHO HAS THE CARD?”

All because we wanted to do something nice.

And we should do something nice. Teachers and coaches and all the people who pour into our
kids deserve to be celebrated.

It just shouldn’t require a part-time bookkeeping job to make it happen.

Two Moms Had the Same Thought

This is why the story behind GroupTogether is genius.

GroupTogether was started by two moms, Ali and Julie, who were dealing with these exact same things themselves.

Their kids had birthday parties. Their kids had teachers and coaches. They were organizing group gifts, collecting money and managing all the little pieces that come with trying to do something thoughtful as a group.

They weren’t sitting in a conference room trying to identify some hypothetical parenting problem.

They were living it.

They were moms thinking: There has to be an easier way to do this.

So they created one.

With GroupTogether, one person sets up an e-card and a money collection and shares a single
link.

Everyone contributes directly through that link, so one parent isn’t responsible for chasing down
15 separate payments or keeping a running tally in her head.

Everyone can also add their own message to the e-card. Parents can personalize it with a photo
of their child, add something funny or write their own note.

Do you understand what this means?

Nobody has to secretly pass a card around the school parking lot.

Nobody accidentally takes the card home.

Nobody has to track down the card.

Nobody has to text:

“WHO HAS THE CARD?”

This alone feels like innovation.

And all of those individual contributions can come together for one meaningful gift.

Less Stuff Doesn’t Have to Mean Less Celebration

This is the part I especially love about rethinking the way we give gifts.

The idea isn’t that we stop celebrating people.

Quite the opposite.

It’s asking whether 15 smaller, separate gifts are always more meaningful than one gift
everyone contributed toward.

For a birthday, maybe that means the bike your child has been begging for.

Maybe it’s a giant LEGO set.

Maybe it’s an experience they’ll remember longer than another toy.

And as kids get older, it can become something else entirely: an opportunity to let them decide.

Let’s say friends and family contribute toward one group gift, and now your child has a meaningful amount to work with.

What do they want to do with it?

Do they spend all of it?

Save some?

Put it toward something bigger?

Choose an experience?

And for kids who truly do not need another thing, which, depending on the current condition of your playroom, may be all of them, they can even choose to give some or all of it to a charity or cause they care about.

Suddenly, the birthday gift becomes a tiny lesson in money.

Not in a “Happy sixth birthday, welcome to your personal finance seminar” kind of way.

Just a natural conversation.

You have this much. What matters to you? What would you like to do with it?

There’s something pretty cool about giving kids the opportunity to make that choice.

And frankly, it feels slightly more useful than finding storage space for another 47-piece toy set.

Because Moms Really Don’t Need Another Thing to Manage

The older my kids get, the more I realize how much of motherhood is actually logistics.

It’s remembering picture day, pajama day, and that tomorrow is the last day to turn in the form.

It’s birthday parties, teacher birthdays, soccer snacks, and class celebrations.

It’s knowing which kid needs a gift, which teacher needs a card, who already paid you, who hasn’t, what you volunteered to bring and where exactly you put the gift you bought three weeks early because, for once, you were on top of things.

None of these tasks is particularly difficult on its own.

It’s the accumulation of all of them.

Which is why I have become a huge fan of anything that removes one completely unnecessary step from the process.

I don’t need an elaborate system for group gifting.

I need one link.

I need people to contribute themselves.

I need them to write their own message.

And then I need to cross that task off my list and move on with my life.

That’s it.

Maybe It’s Time to Rethink the Whole Thing

I don’t think traditional birthday presents are going anywhere, nor should they.

There is something magical about watching a kid tear into wrapping paper while everyone cheers them on.

Sometimes you know exactly what a child wants. Your kid is excited to pick it out. You miraculously remembered to buy it more than 23 minutes before the party.

By all means, bring the gift.

But maybe every birthday doesn’t need 20 individual presents.

Maybe the teacher gift doesn’t need one parent keeping a mental spreadsheet of Venmo payments.

Maybe the card doesn’t need to travel through six backpacks and three cars before everyone has signed it.

Maybe we can still be generous and thoughtful and make people feel incredibly celebrated without making the process so complicated.

Because the goal was never more stuff.

The goal was never more errands, more tracking, or more things for moms to remember.

The goal was to make someone feel special.

And that’s really what GroupTogether gets right. It makes gifting easier for the parents organizing it and more meaningful for the person receiving it. Instead of 15 parents buying 15 separate gifts, everyone can contribute toward something the recipient actually wants. Instead of another pile of duplicate toys or toys that may never make it out of the box, a child can get one thing they’re genuinely excited about.

For teacher and coach gifts, it means one link, one collection, and one e-card instead of chasing down payments and signatures. For birthdays, it means less stuff coming into our homes and more choice for our kids.

It’s simpler. It’s more efficient. And frankly, it makes a whole lot more sense.

We’re still celebrating the people we love.

We’re just making it easier on everyone while we do it.

And as a mom, I will happily take one less thing to manage.

FAQS about GroupTogether

How does GroupTogether work?

GroupTogether makes it easy to set up a collection for a card or gift card. Just visit the website and answer a few quick questions to get a link you can share with your group. Everyone can use the link to sign the card, chip in, or do both. Once the collection closes, you can download the card as a PDF or share it using the link. If you’ve collected funds, you can choose from eGift Cards offered by 150+ retail partners in the US, or buy a ManyCard so the recipient can choose their preferred eGift Card. Fund transfers aren’t available in the United States at this time.

What’s a ManyCard?

The ManyCard is the answer to “I don’t know what to give.” The ManyCard can be swapped for any retailer eGift Card the recipient chooses (150+ to choose from in the US). The recipient can use the ManyCard to choose from multiple retailers, and they have 3 years to swap it. Once the retailer eGift Card is purchased, the recipient has another 3 years to use it.

What occasions can you organize a GroupTogether card and eGift Card for?

You can use GroupTogether pretty much any time you need to organize a group to sign a card! Moms mainly use it to thank their kids’ teachers and sports coaches or to collect money for kids’ birthdays, but you can also use it for babies, weddings, and much more. 

What is the overall cost?

The group card is $5.50, and it’s free if you add a gift collection and collect $20+. For more specific information, see what’s included on the pricing page. With a gift collection, you can choose from 150+ eGift Cards or give the ManyCard and let the recipient choose. See which eGift Cards are available in the Gift Store. There are no extra fees when giving the ManyCard or most of the 150+ retailer eGift Cards. A 2% fee applies only to Amazon, Target, and Walmart eGift Cards. You can deduct this fee from the amount collected if you prefer.

How long can I use my pack of cards?

To learn more about GroupTogether, visit their website and Instagram and Facebook pages.