The Nonprofit FAQ

What are some ways to thank volunteers?

Lucy Bradley (bradleyl@ag.Arizona.EDU) said on HORT-AGENTS on
Sat, 16 Mar
1996:


We recently had our annual awards celebration for Master Gardeners in
Maricopa County, AZ, and once again spent way more than we can afford.

We obtain donations from nurseries, garden catalogs & magazines, memberships
to gardens and zoos etc. and put them on three tables at the back of the
room. These items are raffled off (all Master Gardeners who attend the event
receive a free ticket to the raffel and no tickets are sold) through out the
evening. Every time we switch categories of awards we pull three names, one
for each table and the winners go back and pick out the gift of their
choice.

For the actual recognition, we provide awards that will support the group in
doing what they do for the MG program rather than individual gifts to the
recipients (e.g. we got a computer for the folks who work the phones at the
extension office (hand-be-down from the University), and we got the folks
who
help with clerical work a new office chair. We started a lending library for
teachers in honor of the school gardening team and each of the books has a
book plate acknowledging that it was donated in honor of a particular Master
Gardener in the school garden program. We purchased slide carousels for the
speakers bureau, a banner for the special events crew, a gift certificate to
home depot for the demo garden crew, and books and software for the
Satellite
offices, etc.

We added a small bar below the badges of all the MGs who completed advanced
training (Master Entomologist, Master Composter, Master Fund Developer) and
gave each of them tie tack pins to go on the bars (ants for the
Entomologists, pitch forks for the composters, acorns for the fund
developers) [BTW we have paid the die casting fees for these pins so if any
of you want to order them through us we can send you the information] we
also provided each of the past board members with silver stars for the bar,
previous past presidents with silver stars with a green "emeraldish" chip,
current board members have a gold star, acting past pres. has a gold star
with a green chip and current president has a gold star with a "diamondish"
chip.

Each Master Gardener was given a "Master Gardener Certification Card" which
when folded in half is the size of a business card. The front is the
certification card with their name, the back is a list of nurseries that
give
discounts to Master Gardeners and when you open it up the center is the MG
mission statement, and a brief profile of the program (number of members,
total hours contributed last year, key projects. etc.

We do wall plaques (room for new name each year) for most hours of the year,
and leadership positions (Director of the Satellites, President of the Board
and Annual Conference), added a new one this year called "The Mystery
Gardener Award" for those strong silent types who are always there, quietly
in the background making sure everything comes together and goes off with
out
a hitch. Also added "The Caliche Award", got a good size piece of caliche
(bigger than a softball smaller than a basketball, and had it ingraved "The
Maricopa County Master Gardener Caliche Award". (For those of you not from
the South West, Caliche is a hard "rock" formation, often forming an
inpenitrable layer slightly below the soil surface. It is the bane of
gardeners because it is so solid that it prevents water from draining so a
"Chimney" must be cut through to prevent roots from drowning.) The award,
which will be past on each year, goes to one of those master gardeners who
is
"solid as a rock" and always there when you need them.

Each spouse was given a "Honey Do List". We printed them on recycled paper
that we collect from rejects at the copy machine. They are the size of half
a sheet of paper, have the MG Logo in green in a half tone full size on the
page. Across the Top it says "Honey Do List" and below has two lines each
with a box to be checked in the front. The top says, "Before you go to the
garden please....." the second line says, "When you come back from the
garden please......"

We gave administrative staff (secretaries, receptionists, printer, ect.)
vases with the promise to fill them regularly through out the year. We gave
admin folks at the University cups with the MG logo on it.