There are a lot of things you can do with a limited budget, I plan special events for a non profit for foster kids and manage most of the volunteers. Here are some in-expensive ideas:



The volunteer candy bar

This will work with any candy bar but we used the Nestle Crunch bars bought in bulk from a warehouse store like Costco or Sams Club. We figured out the dimensions of the candy bar along with an overlapping area of about 1/6th of an inch In Microsoft Word made our own wrappers that read: "Thank you for your efforts to help our foster youth"

We then cut out each wrapper with a paper cutter and wraped the candy securing the wrapper with a glue stick. For the extra special volunteers we added a nice bow and a thank you card. (these are also a good idea for party favors if you would like to add a logo or theme for a prom/party)



Planting the seeds:

At most craft larger craft stores you can find mesh bags about 2"x2" large with a ribbon that will close the top of the bag. These are normally used for those small multi-colored mints at weddings. We filled them with different colored seeds and used clear address labels that read "thank you for planting the seeds for our future". As an extra, but not necessary, we cut out printed color copies our logo-a butterfly and secured it between the strings by cutting small slits in the butterfly and pulling the strings through.



Hope this helps!

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Replying to:

Hi everyone!


I just finished reading a series of your questions and suggestion regarding volunteer recognition and I must say they are WONDERFUL!! I am currently in a stump myself. I work for a non-profit organization and we are in the midst of recognizing our volunteers for the Speakers Bureau program. The program is basically linking professionals/specialists to come and talk and share various kinds of information within the community regarding different mental health issues. My question is, "How can we recognize the greatness in our volunteers on a fairly limited budget." If anyone has ANY suggestions please let me know. The more creative, the better!!


Thanks,


Nikkie

Check with your area RSVP organization. This stands for Retired Senior Volunteer Program and they are usually all over 750 RSVP programs throughout the United States, I'm sure they'd love to come out and speak to your group for free. Hope this helps.

God Bless