Volunteers play an integral role in the ability of many charities, and even businesses to function and without people who are willing to give up their time for nothing, many of these organisations would cease to exist.
People can have many motives for volunteering their time and expertise for free, whether they believe strongly in the cause that the charity is involved in, want to build their experience in a business environment or want to keep themselves active in a period between jobs, volunteers can find their way to organisations for a whole host of reasons.
Time is an important commodity to give away these days and while people may not be volunteering to seek any kind of financial reward, giving gifts to volunteers can have two major effects for the charity or company who are awarding them.
Firstly there is the motivational effect that receiving a gift will have on the volunteer. Gifts are always at their most powerful when they are not expected, so giving promotional gifts to volunteers will help to motivate them and may well help you to hold on to their services for longer.
But why choose promotional gifts for volunteers rather than something without your brand all over it?
One thing is for sure when it comes to volunteering, there are plenty of options available. If people are willing to volunteer their services for free then you can be pretty sure there will be a queue of people willing to take them up on their offer. So why did they choose your organisation?
What drives most volunteers is the sense that they are doing something good for a worthwhile cause, and by choosing your organisation over all of the others, they are showing that they believe in what you do and are supporters of the work you carry out.
Rather than with some other forms of promotional gifts, people will be happy to receive a product that is adorned with your logo as the fact that they support your charity means that they will be happy to show their allegiance to the principals that you stand for. Supporting a charity is often a statement of personality, so many people will be happy to show their support for a charity that shares the same principals as they do.
So what promotional gifts should you give to your volunteers? If people are going to be happy to spread the world about your charity, give them a platform on which to do so. Choose a promotional gift that people can use as something that is used stands more of a chance of being seen which will help to spread the word about your organisation.
Make your promotional gifts relevant, practical and stylish and people will be happy to use them which in turn will help to raise awareness of your organisation.
Posted by Alan Grainger
