A few weeks ago we met with all of our KidMin staff and brainstormed for 30 minutes on free or nearly free ways we can appreciate our volunteers. Our goal was to come up with 100 ideas!
After I took out the duplicate ideas or ideas that did not meet our “nearly free” criteria we didn’t quite reach 100. But I’m thinking with your help we will reach it easily.
Leave your idea in the comments below!
100 Ways to Appreciate Volunteers:
1. Volunteer Picnic
2. Andy Stanley does your voicemail greeting “This is ___’s voicemail and he’s an awesome volunteer.”
3. CG in the Main Service recognizing this volunteer
4. Flash Mob
5. Button to wear
6. Backstage Pass for Main Service
7. ”The Kelsey” award (Our Waumba Host is Kelsey & she would recognize in large group.)
8. Decorate classroom or doorway for birthdays
9. Lake Potluck Cookout
10. Sunday Morning Starbucks run for a volunteer
11. Facebook updates
12. Wall of fame – post pics
13. Walk of fame – they walk through a tunnel of high fives and cheers
14. Free T-Shirt
15. Wow Trophy – you make a great crazy trophy award and present on Sunday
16. Phone Call Appreciation
17. Personal Shuttle Service to and from car
18. Acknowledge Anniversaries (both volunteer anniversaries & personal)
19. Volunteer crown of honor
20. Volunteer Team Picture
21. Personal Delivery (of something they love)
22. Furniture on a Sunday for small group (Our small groups sit on the floor. Furniture for a group or group leader would stand out.)
23. Serenade from worship
24. iTunes gift card
25. Text Messages (Pics from Sunday)
26. Bulletin Board
27. Write a song about them
28. Homemade goodies
29. Public recognition
30. Sunday off
31. Free car wash during service
32. Impromptu Treats
33. Their own segway (we must know someone to borrow this from?)
34. Personal visit (bring coffee to their house our office)
35. Connections gift card (Our bookstore)
36. Surprise Mariachi Band (sombreros required)
37. One-on-one meetings/time
38. Invite them out to spend time away from church
39. Meet volunteers and kids at a park
40. Play and cookout
41. Birthday hat
42. Reed Porter “awesome volunteer” report (Reed Porter is a KidStuf character. We shoot video of him almost every month so we would shoot a quick shout out to a volunteer while doing that.)
43. Team thank you note
44. Redbox code
45. Favorite drink
46. Tweets
47. Somehow serve them
48. Homemade cookies
49. Social at your house
50. Reed Porter “voicemails”
51. Pray for volunteer
52. Valentines with pictures of kids from their small group
53. Game night
54. Record rest of the team praising them & email them that week.
55. Lunch with Lead Pastor
56. Personalize monogram notebook (hand drawn)
57. Celebrating people in Sunday’s meetings
58. High 5
59. Flair (buttons they wear on their lanyards)
60. Prayer requests
61. Jibjab Volunteer appreciation using staff
62. Written words of affirmation
63. Hugs
64. Balloons on Sunday
65. Letter magnets on fridge in Volunteer Central celebrating a volunteer
66. Highlight on chalkboard in Volunteer Central
67. ”Secret Service” escort throughout a Sunday morning
68. Singing telegram
69. Intentional help with a move or something like that
70. Favorite Candy
71. Email Bible verse
72. Hallmark E-Card
73. Recorded iPhone Video
74. Individual breakfast
75. Candy Gram
76. Picture (of them serving their small group or in their roll)
77. Double ply Charmin in dressing room (apparently this is a problem in the KidStuf greenroom)
78. Conversation
79. $5 Starbucks card
80. Evite Cards
81. Flowers
82. Visit from Andy/Lead Pastor
83. Trivia posted about that person
84. Waumba Wish (Grant a wish)
85. Favorite things (Gather a list of their favorite things and bring one of them in)
86. Birthday cupcakes
87. Give them colorful shoe laces.
88. Take a picture of them with their kids and post on Facebook.
89. Tell parents what a GREAT volunteer they are as parents arrive to pick up their child.
90. Ask parents to write notes to this volunteer & present them in a gift bag.
91. Call their spouse and thank them for supporting this volunteer as they serve. Tell them about all of the great volunteer qualitites you see in their spouse.
92. Take volunteer’s picture with your mascot and post it. (Grizzle Dizzle from KidStuf.)
93. Write a cheer for this volunteer. Send it home with kids to learn. Let kids perform it on the stage for their volunteer leader.
94. Write a “You Rock” song (simple and silly with motions), record it simply in house and send it out to all of the kids. Let them perform it on the stage for their volunteer leader.
Way cool! Some very valid points! I appreciate you penning this article and the rest of the website is extremely good.
Great list of ideas! Thanks for sharing!
Can i repost this on my Blog… Ill give you all the credit… but its that good..
Great post! We are linking to this particularly great content on our site. Keep up the good writing.
Great ideas! Definitely helpful!!
They asked for a stack of plates! And forks. AND A KNIFE. Because apparently the thing you do is just throw a birthday party up in the Starbucks.
I truely enjoy your blog. Say thanks a ton for the post.
Have someone (with a great camera) offer to take a couple family pics for the volunteer. Give it to them on a cd.
We would bring a volunteer/pastor upfront. Previously Have all the kids/audience write adjective about volunteer and post on the honored guest. (also can be put all over car instead)
I’ve been browsing online more than 3 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours Inside North Point :
Kids | 100 Almost Free Ways to Appreciate Volunteers. It is pretty worth enough for me. In my view, if all website owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the internet will be much more useful than ever before.
I think it will be great if we had a volunteer picnic. As myself I am a children’s ministry volunteer, I have been for 6 years now, and I love every bit of it. Thanks for all you guys do to appreciate us, volunteer, we surely love working with kids.
Also having a cookout, and praying for volunteers such as a retreat.
Thank you so much for this encouragement! I had to make a decision recently that led to a very uncomfortable confrontation. So hard to lead through without a breakdown but I knew where God had called me to and I made the tough call! Still hard but this resonated so much with my saddened spirit! Thank you thank you!
Thank you for posting this! Just appreciating our volunteers is never enough – we need to actually demonstrate appreciation. So I’m definitely going to employ some of these