Focused discussion on Volunteers’ Week

Let’s talk about celebrating volunteers during Volunteers Week

13 March 2025

Gifts

With little or no budget finding creative ideas can be a challenge. Remember that most volunteers will not wish you to spend charity or trust money on them.

• Top Tip: Check with volunteers that there are no particular dislikes.
• Tea/Coffee gift set. Mug with tea / coffee bag.
• Thank you seeds or a small plant. Mixed wildflower seeds can be decanted into small envelopes with a Thank You! stamp. A local garden centre may be willing to supply them free or at a reduced cost particularly if the envelope tells the volunteer which garden centre supplied the seeds.
• If you have one, ask your fundraising team for links to corporates that they work with for donations.
• Ask members of your senior leadership team to drop in on volunteers to say hello and thank you. Taking biscuits and cakes will always be a popular bonus.
• For a volunteer who has gone the extra mile take a look at the Room to Reward scheme, https://helpforce.community/knowledge-base/resources/room-to-reward-hotel-breaks-for-hidden-heros

Tokens and Discounts for volunteers

Not just for volunteers’ week and there are a variety of schemes available. Time credits allocate volunteers tokens for the number of hours they have volunteered which can be saved up and used for events and parks across the country.

• Tempo Time Credits website
• Tickets for Good
• Blue Light cards

Events

Afternoon tea gatherings are always popular. To help volunteers get to know each other ice breaker activities for example, a quiz, can be fun

‘Bring in a dish’ A great way to bring a diverse group of volunteers together. Be mindful that no one feels pressured into contributing.

Find local people, patients, relatives who can sing, play music, do magic acts etc at an event. As it’s for volunteers some will offer a discount or do it for free.

Mindfulness sessions where volunteers can get creative and maybe try something they haven’t done before.

Boards games are a great way to bring people together and have fun as long as they are not too competitive.

Keeping events inclusive

If you have a wide age range of volunteers pleasing everyone can be difficult. With limited resources you may need to go with the majority. Using a poll app can be a useful way of finding out what is the most popular activity, date and time.

Ask some volunteers to be part of a task group looking at reward and recognition.

One charity organisation has volunteers ranging from 17 – 86. For the 12-15-year-olds and 17–19-year-olds they already have a monthly virtual club.

Social media ideas for Volunteers’ Week

• Volunteer stories daily.
• Videos ‘Sixty seconds with...’

Take a look at previous discussions on Volunteers’ Week for more ideas

• Volunteers’ Week and promoting services – 5 March 2025
• Useful tips and ideas for Volunteers' Week and the Big Help Out - 2024
• 2024 Volunteers' Week Reflections - 2 July 2024

Other useful links

• Volunteers’ Week Official Resources