Giving Gifts

Giving gifts or purchasing things for your mentee is one of the more complicated topics you will face as a mentor. You want to be able to show your care and affection for your mentee through giving gifts, but so often they can become distractions in your mentoring relationship. 

Let me be the first to say that this is a gray topic. It is not black and white. We are just giving you our perspective that we gained through years of mentoring. 

We never want our mentee or their family to:

• See us as an ATM
• To hang out with us to get something
• Confuse our mentee when we don’t give them everything they want

This is especially difficult when the gifts you want to purchase are considered necessary items. 

We have had mentees who:

• Needed new shoes
• Needed a bed
• Needed groceries

When needs like this pop up, we suggest you use your connections to a non-profit organization or a church to partner with your mentee to take care of those needs. We highly recommend building a relationship with other ancillary organizations such as food banks, clothing closets, and churches. 

If you want to provide basic items, we’re ok with that, as long as the mentee and their family know it’s coming from someone other than you. This is a benefit to mentoring with a specific organization - they can be the fall guy when someone asks you for a gift. You can blame it on them. 

But there is a difference between a want and a need. 

We recommend that you do not purchase your mentee anything with the exception of a birthday present. We recommend that you place a $25 cap on the birthday gift that you purchase. An occasional purchasing of food and treats is another thing. Perhaps you want to take your mentee to a game or movie. Those are ok as long as you follow the rule of three and you make sure it doesn’t turn into something the mentee expects. 

Your presence is enough. Obviously this is assuming basic needs are being provided, the best gift you can give your mentee is love and relationship. 

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