Volunteers perform multiple charitable works for the welfare of the community. Be it contributing their tireless hours to some volunteer act or donating their hard-earned money to some noble cause. Even after doing all that, they still ask for nothing in return.

So, giving your volunteers a letter of recommendation (LOR) for their hard work can be a sweet gesture to show your appreciation for their work. But why just a LOR? This is because they hold significant standing in the professional context. It boosts their credibility and makes them stand out among thousands of other candidates applying for the same job with the same set of skills.

Letter of recommendations can be a great way to prove your skills and stand out. That’s why you need to show the volunteer’s contributions to your organization in a more genuine and impactful way.

Here are seven tips to help you create a compelling recommendation letter for your volunteers:

7 Tips to Craft Letter of Recommendation for Volunteers

1. Personalization

Personalizing always adds a touch of warmth and a known feeling. So, you should start the letter of recommendation by personalizing it and adding a touch of warmth. To start with, use the first name of the volunteer, and then move on to briefly describe your relationship with them. At this point, you can also highlight their qualities, skills, and time contributed to explain volunteers hour value, which ultimately makes them stand out as a person. Personalizations always make everything sound more authentic, so that’s the first thing you should focus on.

1. Opening Statement

The opening statement is the first statement. Just like in everything on social media, be it a video or some written content, capturing the reader’s attention is the most important thing to hook them in and make them read the whole thing. So, the same rule applies here: craft a strong opening statement to impress the readers of the LOR. You can mention things like the duration of their service to provide them with some context, and then later discuss the volunteer’s abilities and skills. Make sure to use a positive tone throughout to make a lasting impact.

1. Specific Examples

To prove any fact or statement, examples are preferred the most. They provide tangible proof for the statement or fact being mentioned. As you are saying all good things about your volunteer, it may sound a little suspicious, so to rule over that doubt, you must prove whatever you are saying with some specific examples. Here are some examples for your reference: talk about any project or initiative led by them that made a significant impact on your organization, or talk about any challenge that they successfully navigated through.

1. Highlight Skills and Qualities:

Saying positive things about them is fine and all, but what skills do they possess that make them the best fit for any organization? So, in this step, you should talk about their skills and attributes, which are so valuable that anybody would be convinced to work with them. Talk about how good they are as leaders. While you mention that in the letter of recommendation for volunteers, also mention the projects led by them. Doing this will make the readers of the letter confident that it’s not just another saying but a true thing, as you’ve proved with an example.

1. Quantify Achievements:

Related to the specific example point that we discussed earlier. Giving examples makes the reader confident that whatever you are saying is actually true and has also been proven. But quantifying those examples is another important thing. Numbers paint a picture, not some words written well. For example, the volunteer is a great leader; to prove that quality, you mentioned that they have led multiple projects at your organization. But this may sound like another statement because nothing is supporting it. So, to make it more believable, say, the projects they led helped us raise X amount of funds for our other volunteer project.

1. Address Growth and Development:

So, their employer may say, it’s a great thing that they are so socially responsible, but what about their learnings? If they are still not convinced by your elevator pitch about them, just for that, you must use this tip as well to bring more clarity to your LORs. Highlight the things the volunteers at your organization learned from the projects. Here you have to tell about any learning experience, skills they acquired while working with you, or any challenge that they faced and came out of it successfully. This will give more depth and also speak about the volunteer’s commitment to continuously learn and grow.

1. Closing Remarks and Contact Information:

Lastly, after all that hard work, end the letter with a small summary of why you would like to recommend your volunteer to their new company. After that, provide your contact information, maybe your phone number or your email, so that if they want to know about any further information, they can reach out to you easily. Keep in mind to make positive remarks, reiterating your confidence about the volunteer’s abilities and skills to end on a positive note.

End Note

In conclusion, make sure to make the letter of recommendation personal and address them with their first name, and then start with a solid opening line. Following that, mention as many skills as you want about the volunteer, but make sure that you’re using specific and quantifiable examples to prove those skills. It was quite a task to make a good and impactful LOR, wasn’t it? Yet, it is a fruitful one!

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