It's not earth-shattering, but our volunteers really appreciate and respond to the personal notes I send out periodically. On our organization's note-card or a card especially chosen for the individual volunteer, I remind him/her how important his/her efforts are to me and the organization. I usually emphasize a recently accomplished task or project and point out how it affected our operation. When I host a volunteer group, I multiply the number of volunteers by the number of hours they've worked, then divide it all out to let them know how many (non-stop!) eight hour days it would have taken our tiny staff to complete the same volume of work. It's often quite staggering!
Ms. De Jenkins Lambing