Keeping your volunteer happy e.g. saying thank you to your volunteers

Volunteers are motivated to give their time for all sorts of reasons.

One way of keeping your volunteers motivated is to plan for and implement ways of keeping them happy. This can include:

• saying thank you to your volunteers
• turning your organisation into a volunteer magnet!

Sport organisations are generally very good at saying thank you and because of the nature of the roles of sport volunteers, often "goodies" are given to volunteers. Sometimes, volunteers in sport are given "flat-rate expenses", "a small sum" or an honoraria.

While volunteers may enjoy receiving these items, your organisation should be aware of potential legal difficulties in giving tangible thank yous and incentives to volunteers:

• Paying volunteers an honoraria
• Paying expenses to volunteers
• Travel expenses for volunteers
• Care expenses for volunteers
• Expenses and state benefits
• Legal issues and volunteering
• Who is allowed to volunteer?
• National minimum wage and volunteering

All of this information is from our Information Team web pages, or you can contact them with specific questions.