Pro Round Up: Fresh Volunteer Appreciation Week Ideas with New Takes on Old Classics

In this week’s blog, we’re taking a look at some volunteer appreciation “classics” and offering fresh ways to approach them.

We hope you’ll use these ideas in your own Volunteer Appreciation Week celebrations, but also as ongoing ways to show the priceless volunteers who choose to donate their time, energy, and talent just how much their service means.

The Classic: Volunteer of the Year award

• Purpose: To publicly acknowledge the work of an individual whose contributions to the organization went above and beyond in some way

• Pros: Definitely shows appreciation for the hard work of that individual, shines a light on those areas of service, and offers an aspirational challenge of sorts to other volunteers motivated by that type of award

• Cons: Awards are biased toward volunteers who are able to contribute the most time, and tend to exclude students, those who work full-time or are otherwise not able to participate no matter how invested they are in the cause.

A Fresh Volunteer Appreciation Week Idea: Volunteer Spotlights   

Share that warm glow of appreciation with more people and take your public recognition of volunteer service way beyond one person a year with volunteer spotlights!

The options here are wide open. Spotlights could be weekly or monthly, and can be shared on social media, your organization’s website, in emails to members/followers, and in reports to the board of directors or donors.

In addition to the public recognition, leaders of volunteers can also use this opportunity to write a personal note to the selected volunteer to share the organization’s appreciation and how their service has positively impacted the community.

These spotlights can feature a student who is serving tirelessly for a semester, a retired volunteer who enjoys the social aspect of volunteering once a week, a retired schoolteacher who finds continued purpose by welcoming school field trip students, or the busy professional who offers time and talent as a volunteer board member, as well as the rockstar volunteer who would be the obvious choice of Volunteer of the Year.

The organizational benefit of this approach? It is more inclusive for the entire volunteer team and shows that everyone can make a meaningful contribution, regardless of their availability or total number of service hours.

It also allows your organization to publicly feature more stories of diverse individual volunteers and all the ways that their age, background, and unique life experience add to the impact of your cause.

For more on how the unique contributions of diverse volunteers benefit the community, check out The Power of Volunteers as Community Capital HERE>>

The Classic: Volunteer Open House

• Purpose: To open the doors of your organization more fully to volunteers to build familiarity, knowledge, and a sense of community between volunteers and staff

• Pros: A low-pressure way to help volunteers get to know each other and the staff, and feel more comfortable navigating your organization’s facilities

• Cons: Open houses are great for extroverted volunteers who enjoy unstructured social time, but may not be appealing for introverts or busy volunteers who don’t see the purpose in a social time with no tangible goals.

A Fresh Volunteer Appreciation Week Idea: Volunteer Tours

Volunteers who serve with your organization are, in many ways, your biggest fans. So why not reward that passion with VIP behind-the-scenes access to all the places they’ve been dreaming of seeing?

Is your organization housed in a historic building? Give a tour of the attic, basement, tunnels, and archives. All those dusty places that you see all the time…remember how excited you were the first time you toured the building and share that with your volunteer team.

Does your organization provide services outdoors? Offer a walking tour of something meaningful…the trees the team planted in one neighborhood, the unique cultivars or flower species growing in the nursery, or a field trip to the park your team helps maintain.

Is your organization part of the local arts and music scene? Offer volunteers a tour of the warehouse of event gear or the local performing arts center.

As mundane as some of these areas may seem to staff who work in them all the time, they are the exact things that drew many volunteers to your organization in the first place. And you might be surprised at how many volunteers show up for a tour of the “boring” part of your office space!       

The organizational benefit of this approach? Every tour you lead helps to build volunteer experts about your cause and provides new stories that those volunteers can then share with the public about your mission’s history, background, and services. Way beyond a printed volunteer manual, volunteer tours offer real-world, hands-on learning that are way more memorable…and fun!

The Classic: Service Hours for Student Volunteers

• Purpose: To provide service learning opportunities for student volunteers, usually for school credit or to accrue service hours for scholarships

• Pros: It’s a short term win-win for students and organizations…students fulfill academic service hour requirements, and nonprofits get high-energy, high-passion volunteers for a few months

• Cons: It can often feel like a revolving door of new volunteers who leave just as they get familiar with the organization. Additionally, student workers often get assigned to the lowest impact work, simply because they won’t be around long-term. This can become a very unrewarding, frustrating cycle for everyone involved.

A Fresh Volunteer Appreciation Week Idea: Student Mentorship and Career Guidance  

Sure, service learners need to volunteer somewhere to fulfill their service hours.  But..they chose your organization for a reason and may have interest in a career in the field someday. You can help them out by offering opportunities to connect with staff for mentorship and career guidance.

From a formal one-to-one direct mentorship, to a panel discussion of staff sharing the educational and employment paths that led them to your organization, to simply introducing student volunteers to paid staff in the departments they are interested in, these types of connections provide much more value than simply “hours served,” and the efforts your organization makes to provide them show students how much you appreciate their service.

Additionally, you can confidently offer professional letters of recommendation those students can use in future job applications, because you’ve taken the time to get to know their interests, talents, and goals.

Does all this take time, planning, and the commitment of your paid staff? Of course, but the organizational benefits far outweigh the challenges.

You’re not only fostering a more rewarding immediate student experience and building your organization’s reputation as a great place to serve, you are also potentially mentoring the next generation of nonprofit professionals in your field. Today’s youth are tomorrow’s leaders, and you never know the impact your actions can have.

For more on creating more purposeful student volunteer opportunities, check out Service Learning with Brian Halderman HERE>>

The Classic: Volunteer Appreciation Gifts

• Purpose: To offer a tangible token of thanks in recognition of volunteer service

• Pros: Gifts are fun! They can also be practical and meaningful mementos from your organization to your volunteer team to symbolize a special moment or memory.

• Cons: Coming up with fresh gift ideas can be a challenge, and volunteer appreciation gifts can easily veer into tchotchke territory. Worst case scenario: they become an organizational expense toward ultimately disposable trinkets. After all, how many keychains, coffee mugs, or water bottles does one person really have space for?

A Fresh Volunteer Appreciation Week Idea: Volunteer Appreciation Experiences

Obviously, this category can include things like volunteer appreciation luncheons, picnics, and banquets, but why not take it further? Volunteers are some of the most creative, curious, and adventurous people on earth, so lean into that by offering unique volunteer experiences!

Within your own organization, are there tours, special events, or “experiences” that customers pay for? Create a volunteer-only version of that for your team or allow volunteers to enjoy those customer perks for free.

Are there other volunteer-involving organizations in your area that you could partner with to “trade” volunteer experiences with? Schedule a volunteer meet-up and tour the place together, or trade comp tickets with that volunteer program for individual visits.

Open your organization’s doors for volunteer “friends and family nights,” with special events the volunteer can share with those they love who may not always understand the passion and excitement to volunteer feels toward your org. (Bonus: you might even recruit new volunteers from the guest list!)

The organization benefits to this approach? You are speaking the love language of many volunteers who are motivated by quality time and acts of service, you are potentially saving money on gift bag stuff that won’t last, and you are building valuable connections with other local volunteer programs for collaboration and idea sharing.

For more on strengthening volunteer connections, check out Secrets to Building a Sense of Community with Volunteers HERE>>

Volunteer Appreciation – The Possibilities are Endless!

This list is just a start, but we hope it offers some fresh inspiration to leaders of volunteers who may feel stuck in a “volunteer appreciation week” rut.

The classics listed above are just that, and for good reason. However, there are ways to approach them in creative ways to breathe new life into your overall volunteer appreciation strategy…and bring the fun back into it for volunteers and staff.

Use this list as a starting point, and add your own ideas to it. Invite feedback from your volunteer team on things they like to do or see and include those as well.

And please share your ideas with us by emailing wecare@volpro.net – we’d love to include all your brilliant approaches in a future Pro RoundUp!