Volunteer Appreciation: Why It Matters + 4 Top Ideas

Nonprofit Learning Lab
4 days ago
5 min read

This is a guest blog.

As of 2024, the average value of just one volunteer hour was $34.79. Volunteer service is vital to many of your organization’s mission-critical projects and programs, and it supports fundraising and administrative tasks. Given your volunteers’ significant impact on nearly every area of your work, your team likely appreciates everything your volunteers do even more than you know.

The real question is, do your volunteers know how grateful you are for them? Regular volunteer appreciation should be a cornerstone of your management strategy. However, recognition can be complicated to navigate since all of your volunteers likely have different preferences for how they’d like to be thanked and serve on varied schedules.

In this guide, we’ll discuss four popular volunteer appreciation ideas you could incorporate into your program. But first, let’s review some of the why behind the what—the benefits of thanking volunteers.

Why Volunteer Appreciation Is Important

As Better Impact’s volunteer appreciation guide explains, recognizing volunteers is beneficial for both your organization and its volunteers. Specifically, it helps with:

Keeping volunteers engaged by showing that you see them as important members of your community, not just sources of free labor.
Boosting program satisfaction ratings, since appreciated volunteers tend to feel more connected to your organization and motivated to do their best work.
Increasing volunteer retention because happy, valued volunteers are more likely to continue serving long-term.
Encouraging other forms of involvement like donating, attending events, or advocacy, making volunteers even more valuable to your mission.

Generally speaking, appreciation is essential to a strong volunteer program and overall organizational culture. However, how you incorporate it into your volunteer management strategy will vary depending on your budget and your volunteers’ unique preferences.

Best Volunteer Appreciation Ideas

The following ideas are best for formal appreciation, which can be tricky to time because of volunteers’ differing schedules and time commitments. Some of the best times to use these ideas include:

After the first time a volunteer serves
While following up after events
At the end of the year
When volunteers achieve a goal or milestone
On official annual occasions, such as National Volunteer Week in April

As you decide which of these ideas to try when, don’t underestimate the value of informal appreciation in between formal displays of gratitude. A supervisor simply telling a volunteer, “Thanks for your help!” or “Good job today!” at the end of their shift can go a long way in maintaining motivation.

Now, let’s dive into some of our favorite ways to formally thank volunteers!

Personalized Notes

Thank-you notes are a tried-and-true way to show gratitude to volunteers. However, they’ll only make their desired impact if they’re tailored to each volunteer.

To personalize your volunteer thank-you notes, make sure to:

Address each volunteer by their preferred name. A volunteer named Allison would feel much more seen if she got a message with the greeting “Dear Allison” than something like “Dear Valued Volunteer.” Make sure to also note the correct spelling of each volunteer’s name and what they like to be called. If you began Allison’s note with “Dear Alison” or “Dear Ally” when she doesn’t go by Ally, she likely wouldn’t be as receptive to it.
Reference their specific involvement with your organization. Similar to the preferred name factor, your appreciation message will resonate more with its recipient if it said “Thank you for helping with setup, check-in, and tear-down at our annual gala for the third year in a row—once again, we couldn’t have pulled off that event without you!” instead of just “Thank you for volunteering with [Organization Name] over this past year.”
Demonstrate impact. Incorporate relevant photos, statistics, and stories into your thank-you notes to show volunteers the concrete difference they’ve made for your mission. If a staff member, event attendee, or beneficiary gives a positive testimonial that mentions a particular volunteer, share it in their note with the contributor’s permission.

While emails are probably the easiest way to send these messages to volunteers, you could also handwrite notes to your most dedicated supporters or experiment with unique formats like eCards to make them stand out.

Small Gifts

For a tangible reminder of volunteers’ worth to your organization, appreciation gifts are your best bet. Some of the best volunteer gifting ideas include:

Branded merchandise — e.g.,clothing, beverage containers, magnets, stickers, or other items featuring your organization’s logo and colors.
Gift certificates or discount cards from your corporate partners or other businesses your volunteers frequent.
Other small trinkets your volunteers enjoy, such as personalized notebooks or succulents.

To make these gifts special and stay within your volunteer program budget, send them along with a thank-you note once a year or after major accomplishments. For example, once your organization completes a capital campaign, you could send gifts to the volunteers who have worked on the campaign from the beginning.

Appreciation Events

According to Double the Donation’s volunteer statistics report, more than a third of volunteers cite socialization as a major reason for volunteering, although some volunteer roles are inherently more social than others. Appreciation events give volunteers in all positions a chance to socialize and build community while receiving recognition.

An in-person social, dinner, or awards ceremony tends to work well as a volunteer appreciation event. If your volunteers serve remotely or are spread out across different chapters of your organization, virtual happy hours or game nights can also help them connect without having to travel, as long as you keep gratitude at the center of your event.

Skill Development Opportunities

You probably know that a thorough onboarding process is critical to an effective volunteer program. However, many of your volunteers likely want to continue learning and growing in various ways past this initial instructional phase. Providing skill development opportunities that volunteers can take advantage of at will fulfills this need and again shows you value them.

There are many different types of volunteer training resources you could create for your program, including:

Guided online courses
One-off videos on specific topics
Blog posts or other written resources
Optional webinars, panel discussions, or group workshops

Send a survey to your volunteers asking which of these opportunities they’d be most interested in and what training topics they’d like you to cover. Then, use their feedback to shape your offerings so volunteers will be more likely to participate.

Additionally, you can recognize experienced volunteers who have performed well in their roles by providing advancement opportunities for them, such as mentoring new volunteers or serving in a higher-profile capacity. You shouldn’t pressure volunteers to take on these responsibilities if they don’t want to, but by letting them know that these options are open to them, they’ll see that you’ve noticed them going above and beyond for your organization.

The ideas above are just four of the many possible ways you could thank your organization’s volunteers. As you implement your appreciation strategy, track your methods and responses to them in your volunteer management platform so that over time, you can refine your approach and focus on recognizing your volunteers in the ways that resonate most with them.

Eager to learn more? Check out our online volunteer management training:

Effective Volunteer Management: Recruitment, Training, Retention, Committees & Manage Difficult Volunteers