Goals for Successful Recognition Event

This isn't a success story but rather a way to look at "success." I think there ought to be SEVERAL goals for a "successful" recognition event, especially since we are busy people and can't afford for our time to be spent on an activity that accomplishes only one thing! So, how about these for a start? A successful recognition event needs to:

1. 1. Say thank you for anything and everything volunteered to the organization during the past year (the organization's obligation).
   2. Have everyone volunteering the above feel appreciated (the volunteers' perspective).
   3. Recommit (re-enthuse) volunteers to the coming year of work and, potentially, to recruit new volunteers for vacant positions.
   4. Educate everyone attending--frontline volunteers, paid staff, executives, board-level volunteers--about the scope, meaning and value of volunteer services to the organization, and about the diversity and skills of who volunteers.
   5. Acknowledge the contributions of (some) paid staff supervisors to the success of volunteers.
   6. Report the outcomes of volunteer effort (not just to proclaim the hours spent in effort).
   7. Challenge all volunteers through recognition of the special accomplishments of a selected few.
   8. Gain publicity for the organization and for the volunteer program.
   9. Allow volunteers a chance to have fun and meet one another (something they do otherwise only with people on their shift).
   10. Gain respect for the volunteer program and the director of it.