12 Best Volunteer Thank You Letter Samples for Appreciation

A volunteer Thank You letter is a document written to a volunteer to acknowledge their contribution and make them understand that their support is highly valued and appreciated. Volunteers are worth a lot to us, our organization, and our cause.  They dictate their time and talents without asking for any compensation.

Thus, it is imperative that we show them gratitude. Simply writing them a thank you letter can go a long way in accomplishing this goal. While writing a volunteer thank you letter, you will want to first take your time and find the best words to include in the letter to communicate your appreciation as intended.

Here are editable volunteer thank you letter templates for you that are free to be downloaded:

Why Write a Volunteer Thank You Letter?

Taking time to recognize volunteers is important if you want to retain volunteers and even recruit new ones. It is important to consider some of the reasons why you should dedicate a Volunteer thank you letter

The reasons to send a volunteer thank you letter include:

They deserve them

Volunteers gift your organization their time, efforts, and talents generously without asking for any compensation. They could spend their free time doing anything else, but they choose to help you and your cause. For this reason, you need to engage them more and appreciate their contributions.

To retain volunteers and attract new ones

Volunteer thank you letters or any other appreciation efforts can help you to retain volunteers and engage new ones. Recognition and appreciation are part of any good volunteer management plan. Ideally, no one wants to keep volunteering where no one appreciates them.

To build effective relationship

Volunteer thank you letters are particularly effective because they help build human relationships between the sender and the recipient. This personal interaction makes a big difference in whether or not a volunteer feels like part of the organization.

Simply thanking volunteers through volunteer thank you letters, heartfelt messages, and notes or sending them a thoughtful gift is one of the best and easiest strategies a nonprofit organization can use to convert more people into long-term supporters or attract new volunteers. According to results from studies conducted, volunteers discontinue their support and commitment to an organization via volunteerism due to lack of feedback and inadequate recognition. You should ask yourself what steps your nonprofit is taking to appreciate and recognize volunteers for their commitment.

If you haven’t thought of any steps yet, consider deploying some of these Volunteer thank you letter strategies:

• Feature volunteer stories on your organization’s website or blogs
• Regularly engage with your volunteers and thank them verbally
• Send out written Volunteer thank you letters to your volunteers
• Collaborate with local shops and businesses within your state to provide your volunteers with discounts and coupons from time to time
• Invite volunteers and their families to your organization’s networking events and parties
• Offer volunteers free meals while they are serving your organization
• Make your volunteers’ time commitment worth it. don’t just waste their time
• Ask your volunteers for program feedback and review and willingly demonstrate your desire to do your best to satisfy their needs
• Provide your volunteers with career development and training opportunities
• Endorse volunteers to new roles that leverage their skills and abilities.
• Provide your volunteers with reference letters to assist them in their future career search endeavors
• Create a volunteer recognition board to highlight the details of those going above and beyond to support your cause.
• Highlight and communicate the impact of each individual volunteer contribution to your organization.
• In case you have a leadership position vacancy in your organization, offer your volunteers the opportunity to fill the position
• Deploy gratification to make volunteerism more fun and interactive
• Send volunteers personalized volunteer thank you letters on their special occasions, including birthdays, graduation ceremonies, weddings, etc.
•  Use social media to interact with your volunteers regularly and thank them for their commitment and continued support
• Demonstrate flexibility to volunteers by making scheduling a rationalized process
•  Create a book or brochure for volunteers that tells your organization’s story
• Provide volunteers with free clothing, for example, free printed shirts, t-shirts, in exchange for their service and continued support.
• Be helpful to volunteers, especially with their personal needs.
• Get the community involved in an “adopt a volunteer” program
• Continuously provide your volunteers with on-the-job praise
• Try to introduce volunteers to other volunteers to help foster friendships between them.
•  Implement volunteer exit interviews within your organization to understand why volunteers are leaving. This demonstrates to them that you care about them.

Thanking volunteers doesn’t have to seem like a daunting task to you and the organization at large. Usually, it is just a matter of recognizing a volunteer’s contribution to your organization’s cause. The little things that you can do to show them that you care and value them mean the most.

Volunteer Thank You Letter Samples

Following are free volunteer thank you letter samples for you:

While your volunteers are volunteering, consider these tips to make them feel acknowledged:

Share the bigger picture

Giving your volunteers the perspective of what they are doing is one of the best ways to appreciate them. Very often, people volunteering in an organization are tasked with the most mundane tasks. If you Inquire from people who have volunteered their talents and time in organizations, they will inform you that they were given tasks all right.

However, they weren’t sure how those tasks applied to the overall organization’s mission and vision. No matter what your Volunteer is doing, make them aware of the larger context to show that you respect and appreciate their work.

Provide food/lunches

Most volunteers will like it better when you provide them food as they work. Therefore, be sure to provide food for them-be it tea and snacks, complete meal for lunch, etc., to keep them energized and prove to them that you indeed care for them.

Check-in

While they are working for you, make sure to check in with them regularly. This is especially true if the volunteers work in some backroom or storage area where other employees or people don’t often go. If you find them exhausted, give them a break. If they are bored, assign them a different task.

After volunteering their time and talent to support your cause, consider the following volunteer appreciation tips:

Feature stories on the company’s blog/website

As seen earlier, taking the time to engage with your volunteers and know them from a personal perspective is among the best ways to appreciate volunteers and encourage volunteer commitment. An excellent means of achieving this is by featuring at least one Volunteer a month on your blog or website.

Dedicate some of your time to interview them personally. At the end of the day, this is a win-win situation for everyone- the Volunteer gets to tell their story, and you get feedback plus some great material that you can use for volunteer recruitment.

Give awards

Given that there are volunteers who have gone above and beyond to support your organization, then, in that case, nominate them for awards. These awards may include; “Volunteer of the year,” “Most Inspirational Volunteer for the month,” “Most Enthusiastic Volunteer,” “Longest Serving Volunteer,” etc.

Give personal, small tokens of gratitude

Naturally, everyone is drawn to gifts, and everyone likes gifts. From time to time, give your volunteers thank you gifts ranging from something as simple as a Starbucks gift card, printed T-shirts, printed coffee mugs. You could also reach out to local stores and shops within your community and ask them to offer your volunteers discounts and coupons.

Send handwritten thank you cards

In some cases, the most effective way to show gratitude to your volunteers is the old-fashioned way- sending them a personalized handwritten volunteer thank you letter. In this technological age of emails and social media, a handwritten volunteer thank you letter is a novelty. It gives you bonus points. It is good to ensure that the message is personalized to the reader to make them feel good about themselves and appreciate the kind gesture. You can personalize the card by thanking the Volunteer for a specific task they did during their volunteerism.