Advanced Volunteer Appreciation Toolkit – For the Serious Fundraiser’s Eyes Only
3 Relational Strategies that Will Bond Volunteers to Your Cause for Life
I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks. ~William Shakespeare
Volunteers make your mission succeed. So investing in them IS your mission. ~Dan Magill
I’ve done a fair amount of volunteering in my life.
I’ve volunteered at fundraising events, church events, school events. I’ve served food, done outdoor labor, helped prepare furniture and other items to give to the poor. I’ve painted, de-roofed, and taught.
As you would expect, I’ve experienced a great variety of volunteer appreciation methods. You probably have as well.
Of course, no one volunteers just to be thanked for it. But appreciation matters – a lot. Because you want people to volunteer again, not just once. And what makes people keep coming back for more? Caring about a cause only goes so far. It’s knowing the people – the relationships – that’s the stuff of lifelong commitment.
Nonprofits like yours are always looking for more volunteers. Your mission doesn’t happen without them.
So which of these is easier?
A: Creating a system that brings in a consistent stream of new volunteers
B: Keeping more of the volunteers you already have
The answer is B. Just like customers for a business. Just like donors. It’s always easier to keep the ones you have than to get new ones.
Has your nonprofit made a commitment to build relationships with your volunteers?
It’s worth the time. And it’s worth spending some money on.
The time you’ll save from having to look for new volunteers will also save you money. Because who does the work when you don’t have enough volunteers? Your paid staff. And what burns out paid staff more than anything? Getting overworked with stuff that isn’t a core function of their job.
So what are some things you can do to build deep and loyalty-producing relationships with more volunteers?
You probably thought about gratitude, thanking your volunteers.
And that’s important. Here are 9 nearly free ways to thank and retain more volunteers.
But thanking is just the beginning.
Thanking volunteers on its own is not a relationship builder. It’s a transaction. You work for me, I send you a thank you note or a phone call or a gift.
Relationships take more time and effort. They also produce far greater bonding between the volunteer and the nonprofit.
Here are 3 advanced volunteer thank you strategies that will deepen your relationships and result in extended and passionate commitment to your organization.
3 Advanced Volunteer Appreciation Strategies
1. Appreciation Dinner
This is especially appropriate during an extended campaign, such as a capital campaign or a specific and large fundraising goal.
When it’s over – celebrate. Put money into this. Invite your volunteers to a party, and cover all the expenses.
This is also very effective for long-term volunteers. Take everyone who’s volunteered with you for more than a year out to a nice dinner. Or even better, have your staff make it themselves and have it at someone’s house or church or your main facility if it’s large enough.
And when you do a dinner, don’t let all the volunteers sit together. Integrate your staff with them. Do icebreakers. Create bonding moments through competitions, awards, or games.
Few things create bonding more than eating together. If you haven’t caught my main point – this is about deepening the human relationships between your staff, your volunteers, and the people you serve. If your nonprofit serves animals, then bring animals to the dinner too!
2. Personalized Video Messages
This is a little less relational, but if you make these personal, it will still mean a lot.
In other words, don’t just create one video thank you message and send it out to all the volunteers. Take an hour or two, and film little 2-minute videos for each volunteer. What do you say in the video?
- Thank them specifically for what they did, so they feel known
- Tell them what a difference they made
- Have different staff people film different videos, based on who worked with that volunteer the most and knows more of their impact
Most of all – don’t rehearse these too much. Make them real. Messing up and laughing about it on camera is okay. In fact – it’s better that way. Friendship is about overlooking imperfection.
3. Client Appreciation Moments
Do your volunteers ever get to talk to your clients?
Not every nonprofit can do this one due to privacy reasons. But if you can work out a way to get the people you serve face to face with the volunteers who make it all possible, then do it!
The great thing about this one is, you can combine it with the appreciation dinner and do it all the same night. Put one client at each table. For even more interaction, make everyone switch tables for the appetizer, main course, and dessert, so they get to meet more people.
Another way to do this is to figure out a way for your volunteers and the ones they’re serving to work together on something.
Nothing will bond a volunteer to your organization more than meeting the very people for whom their work has made a difference.
What About Client Privacy?
Again – even if you can’t expose your clients to your volunteers, you can still connect them. Have them write notes and provide a way for the volunteer to respond.
I was at the Association for Fundraising Professionals Northwest conference a few weeks ago. Someone there had a terrific idea of having kids write messages in Easter eggs. The volunteer (or donor in this case – some of these ideas work great for donors too) opened the egg, and wrote a reply note and put it in the same egg. Then, that kid got to read the supporter’s note.
So even though they didn’t meet in person, they still got to talk.
The power of moments like these goes so far beyond simple thank you notes – as important as those are too.
When you start implementing advanced volunteer appreciation strategies like these, you are tethering the hearts of your volunteers to your work, your team, and the impact they are having.
Volunteers are donors.
They’re giving time instead of money (though many end up doing both – another reason to do all this!)
So treat them just like you treat your donors, but even more so, because you never see many of your donors in person, but you do see your volunteers.
What If People Question Our Use of Funds for Volunteer Appreciation?
Are you worried about this? Don’t be.
As Jeff Brooks says in his 5th law of fundraising: The more effective the fundraising campaign, the more complaints it will generate.
Same thing applies to volunteer appreciation.
If people complain that you’re “wasting” money thanking volunteers that you could be spending to further your mission, ignore them. Or find a polite way to respond if you want to take the time.
But let’s be clear: They’re wrong. Why? Because your mission will go further when you have a large core of committed and passionate volunteers. More people will be helped. More animals saved. More disease eradicated. More injustice stopped.
Volunteers make your mission succeed. So investing in them IS your mission.
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