65% of volunteers say they haven’t heard the words, “thank you” in the last year. I don’t think that’s that big of a deal if you follow these rules. Still, showing gratitude to your volunteers is a big deal. Here are 20 simple ways to show your volunteers that you appreciate them!
- Throw a BBQ for your teams and their families (include bounce houses).
- Bring coffee and donuts for everyone.
- Write personalized Christmas cards, birthday cards, and cards for special occasions.
- Make yourself available for the special occasions that your volunteers have.
- Engage your volunteers on social media and give shout outs (in a positive way, though).
- Don’t just give your volunteers one shirt or uniform for their role, give them more than one (especially if they volunteer every week) and give them extra swag.
- Switch up your team meetings, have them at Starbucks, you buy.
- Buy your leaders a book that will benefit them, not just for mandatory reading.
- Take your team to a conference, get your church/organization to pay for it or pay for most of it.
- Take your team out to dinner and don’t expense it. You pay for it and don’t tell anyone you personally paid for it.
- Organize a large group of your volunteers to show up at a youth volunteer’s high school graduation or special event.
- Give your volunteers time off. Make sure they understand that you value them as a person and that you want them for the long term.
- Include your volunteers’ families in the fun stuff, they make sacrifices, too.
- Equip your volunteer leaders with personalized email addresses.
- Equip your volunteer leaders with iPads/tablets in order to do their jobs. When they leave, surprise them by letting them keep it.
- Go out of your way to meet with volunteers for coffee or lunch near where they work at.
- Give out gift cards to those that go above and beyond. Make the timing of it random.
- If you’re having a kids camp or VBS, give your volunteers’ kids a significant discount or allow them to go for free.
- If you’re having a concert or special ticketed event, secure a significant amount of tickets for some of your volunteers.
- Lastly, when you have really good news to share with a specific volunteer, allow that person’s leader to share the news with them. When there’s bad news coming from the church or organization, you take the hit and share that personally.
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