Volunteer recruitment and retention continues to get harder and harder. People are busy, stressed, and may not feel like volunteering or continuing to volunteer, particularly if they feel unappreciated.
Volunteer appreciation needs to be ongoing, and it doesn’t have to be time-consuming. A nonprofit doesn’t have to spend a ton of money on appreciation. It’s the small things that make a difference. The value of the THANK YOU is priceless. I created this list this summer when I did a session for the NH Governor’s Conference on Volunteerism, which was on Recruiting and Retaining Volunteers for Non-profits.
While there are dozens of lists out there about volunteer recognition, this is my list, including a few don’ts at the end. AI can spit out endless lists of ideas for recruitment and retention, and it can be a great starting point, but it lacks the human experience element. And if you ask it to give you ideas, please take with a grain of salt and ask yourself, would your volunteers truly appreciate this AND if you were the volunteer, would YOU appreciate it?
AI is a great tool, and I’ve said it before and will say again, don’t use it as a crutch. GIGO, Garbage In, Garbage Out. “Gift them a single paperclip with a note: “You hold us together.”” 🤣🤣🤣This was a sample volunteer appreciation suggestion from ChatGPT. All I can say is, if I got that from an organization I volunteered for, I wouldn’t think highly of it. At least give me a small box of unique paperclips; I’d at least feel there was some thought put into it.
RECOGNITION & GRATITUDE
- Send handwritten thank-you notes. Branded note cards are encouraged. You can buy blank note cards at office supply stores or online and print in house.
- Give shout-outs during meetings. Be specific and make sure you make a point to try to callout/shout out people that may not necessarily be getting a lot of recognition otherwise. Volunteer leaders are typically the ones who don’t seek recognition and also don’t get it which can cause long term resentment and disconnection from the cause.
- Post public acknowledgments on social media. Ask before using names and photos. Best practice is to have a photo and name release for all volunteers.
- Highlight a volunteer of the month. Try to rotate people of all genders. On socials, in newsletters, in office bulletin boards and on a website.
- Write a feature or volunteer bio in your newsletter, weekly, monthly or quarterly.Use a Google form (free) and ask volunteers when they start volunteering to fill out some quick questions. This helps to let volunteer leaders know a little more about the volunteer and connect with them better.
- Hand out “caught being awesome” or “Thank you for being an awesome volunteer” cards. Including a small Dunkin Donuts $5 coupon is also a nice touch.
- Host a small thank-you breakfast once a month. Make it personal, bring something home-made or something unique and delicious from a local bakery.
- Send appreciation text messages. Text messaging for people who don’t do a lot of text messages can be time consuming and difficult to draft and the chance of typos can increase. Drafting your messages in MS word helps personalize and make sure the volunteer’s name is spelled correctly. It’s easy to copy into an email and send it to yourself and then paste into a text message.
- Create a thank-you video from the Executive Director, staff and Board of Directors. Make sure everyone knows how to pronounce the volunteers name correctly.
- Mention volunteers in press releases. Don’t just mention names (again have permission) mention what they do and their impact.
- Give a round of applause at events. Make sure to recognize some specific people.
- Celebrate anniversaries of their service. Don’t just do 5 years, 10 years. Do a one year and call out volunteers and highlight personal impact stories.
- Send surprise “just because” cards. Pick a volunteer randomly once or twice a week (keep track). 2 minutes of your time.
- Share positive quotes with a note of thanks. Carry the above one step further, those quotes are meaningful.
- Recognize birthdays with a card. Capture that information (just day and month not year) when you onboard them.
- Tag them in thank-you posts online (with permission). Take it one step further and find out which channels they frequent the most.
- Nominate them for community awards. In New Hampshire for example, we have state volunteer awards (Volunteer NH). Most states and even nationally have recognition that you can nominate those who give “more”.
- Post “volunteer of the week” on internal bulletin boards. (If you have a brick and mortar space)
- List your volunteers (with permission) in your annual report. (The more places your volunteers are recognized the better, online, offline and verbally)
The next post will focus on Comfort & Hospitality and Meaningful Gestures, followed by a post on Fun and Celebration, and last but not least Gifts & Tokens and Volunteer Recognition Don’ts.
