Member recognition

By publicly recognizing your members' contributions, you can help them feel that their work is worthwhile. At the same time, you can also promote your program and its mission in the community. While recognition is often tied to the end of the service year (or to the end of the school year in school programs), it can be an ongoing way of motivating and encouraging members and volunteers.

Recognition can take many forms. The Youth Volunteer Corps of America (YVCA), a National Direct Grantee headquartered in Kansas, suggests a number of personal and public ways to recognize and reward members' efforts. Print their great ideas and adapt them for your own program.

Document achievements

Members achieved a lot this year. Be sure they have documents from your program that track the important skills they developed. Aside from letters of recommendation and lists of trainings you provided, give members a more official certificate of training to place in their personal portfolios. With this certificate template, you can present members with their acquired training hours after each training.

End-of-year celebration

While recognizing achievement is important all year, it's an especially important part of your end-of-year celebration. For a variety of creative ways to mark the conclusion of the service year, print these suggestions from the Washington Service Corps.

This handy checklist will help you keep track of recognition activities.

Print these tips for inviting prominent community members and civic leaders to your end-of-year ceremonies.

For more information about the importance of recognition and celebrating the end of service, check out these links:

Electronic Gazette for Volunteerism
www.volunteertoday.com

Volunteer recognition ideas/manuals
www.energizeinc.com/ideas.html

Go on to Passing Along Wisdom

Inviting VIPs to your member-recognition events

Including elected officials and community leades to your end-of-service recognition events serves two purposes: It makes members feel important and it educates influential community members about your great program and people!

This letter template was contributed by the Washington Service Corps (WSC). WSC members perform service that has direct and demonstrable impact in the areas of education, the environment, human services, homeland security, and public safety.

Putting together an end-of-the-year service celebration

Created for staff members, this document includes 16 pages of ideas for creating end-of-service events that will leave your members enthused.

This set of tips and tools was created by the Washington Service Corps (Olympia, WA), an AmeriCorps program that addresses needs in the areas of education, the environment, human services, homeland security, and public safety.

Track items ordered for exiting members

Use this form when planning for member recognition activities.

This document was contributed by Youth Volunteer Corps (YVCA). Based in Kansas City, YVCA is a National Direct program dedicated to creating and increasing volunteer opportunities that enrich America's youth, address community needs and develop a lifetime commitment to service.

Recognize members as they finish your program

Use this four-page document when brainstorming ideas for recognizing members at the end of their service.

This document was contributed by Youth Volunteer Corps (YVCA). Based in Kansas City, YVCA is a National Direct program dedicated to creating and increasing volunteer opportunities that enrich America's youth, address community needs and develop a lifetime commitment to service.