Chapter Activity: Honor Your Volunteers

Don’t pass up opportunities to recognize chapter volunteers. Late April every year is National Volunteer Week, a logical time to honor a special volunteer in the local media.

After every chapter event or program or fundraiser, be sure to recognize your hard working volunteers. Do it in the follow-up press releases, in personal notes to each volunteer and to the committee chair, and/or with small gifts.

If you have student volunteers, give them special attention. Use the media, but also consider writing them personal notes or even formal correspondence that they can use in the college admissions process.

Employ as many of the following ideas as is practicable for your chapter:

· Write thank you notes to all contributors of time, money, services

· Praise exceptional volunteer(s) in a news article or letter to the editor

· Request your regional staff to work with your chapter to provide special recognition of outstanding volunteers

· Nominate outstanding volunteers to the Dollars for Scholars National Honor Roll

· Select a special volunteer for recognition at your chapter’s annual meeting

· Create significant election ceremonies for new chapter board members

· Present recognition certificates to board members as they complete their terms

· List names of chapter officers and board members in news reports and on chapter stationery and brochures

· Send your top volunteers to regional Dollars for Scholars workshops and national Dollars for Scholars Conferences

· Send your chapter volunteers birthday greetings

· Give honorary life memberships to longtime, dedicated chapter volunteers

· Provide volunteers with letters of recommendation for their employment or educational pursuits

· Offer a scholarship in the name of an outstanding volunteer

· Provide opportunities for every chapter volunteer to participate in the chapter scholarship ceremony

· Always use “we” rather than “I” when discussing chapter activities publicly

· Chapter Presidents – write letters to the editor of local paper(s) at the end of your term thanking your board of directors and the community for consistent support

· Chapter Presidents – write letters of thanks to each committee chair after an event or program is completed

· Chapter Committee Chairs – write letters of thanks to each committee member at the conclusion of the committee’s event as well as to all donors, supporters, sponsors, and participants regardless of the success of the event

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