The Complete Guide to Writing a Stellar Letter of Recommendation for a Volunteer

Volunteers are the lifeblood of many nonprofits and community organizations. They generously donate their time, skills, and energy to support causes and help others. As a manager or supervisor of volunteers, you may often be asked to provide letters of recommendation for your top volunteers when they apply for jobs, academic programs, or other opportunities. Crafting a compelling letter that highlights their contributions, character, and capabilities is a great way to recognize their service while helping advance their career. This complete guide will provide tips and examples to help you write stellar letters of recommendation for your volunteers.

Why Volunteers Need Letters of Recommendation

Volunteering provides invaluable hands-on experience and helps volunteers develop new skills, expand their professional network, and gain insights into career paths they may want to pursue. A strong letter of recommendation from an organization where they volunteered validates the value of their contributions and demonstrates their reliability, work ethic, and other positive qualities to potential employers or academic institutions

Here are some key reasons volunteers may request a letter of recommendation

• Academic applications – Letters of recommendation from volunteer supervisors strengthen students’ applications to colleges, universities, and scholarship programs by highlighting their community service experience. This shows their commitment to helping others.

• Employment – Volunteer work related to their career field, such as volunteering at animal shelters for aspiring veterinarians or teaching computer skills at nonprofit centers for tech professionals, provides concrete examples of skills transferable to a paid job. Letters reinforce this experience.

• Graduate school – Recommendations for graduate school emphasize volunteers’ specialized skills, work ethic, and career motivation in their chosen field of study based on their volunteer contributions.

• Professional associations – Many fields like medicine and accounting require recommendations for licenses or certifications. Volunteer supervisors can describe volunteers’ mastery of key abilities.

• Character references – Courts, housing authorities, or programs like foster care may request letters vouching for volunteers’ responsible, caring nature based on their community service record.

How to Write an Effective Volunteer Letter of Recommendation

Writing a compelling letter of recommendation requires knowing what aspects of the volunteer’s performance and personality to highlight based on the purpose of the letter. Follow these best practices to produce the most effective volunteer recommendation letter possible:

1. Carefully Review the Request Details

Before drafting your letter, clarify exactly what the volunteer needs the recommendation for and how it should be submitted – as a printed letter, PDF upload, online form, etc. Ask when they need the letter by and request any specific guidelines. If you’re writing a general letter, ask them which skills, accomplishments, or traits they want you to focus on.

2. Talk to the Volunteer

Discussing their goals and volunteer history helps refresh your memory and provides insider details you can use to create a detailed, authentic portrait of them in your letter. Ask them to summarize their key contributions and proudest moments. They may share insightful anecdotes that aren’t in your official records.

3. Gather Their Volunteer Records

Reviewing logs of their service hours, responsibilities, training certificates, performance reviews or emails praising their work provides concrete details to cite in your recommendation letter. Quantify accomplishments like amount of funds raised, people helped, or increases in efficiency. Specific measurable achievements give the letter more credibility and impact.

4. Follow Business Letter Format

Use standard business letter format – return address, date, recipient’s name and address, salutation, paragraph(s) explaining your relationship with and recommendation of the volunteer, complimentary closing, signature, and printed name and title. This polished, professional structure demonstrates the seriousness of your recommendation.

Start by identifying who you are, your relationship to the volunteer (supervisor, volunteer coordinator, etc.), and the length of time you’ve worked with them. Provide a general statement strongly recommending them for the opportunity at hand and highlighting one or two top qualities like “profound commitment to serving children in need” or “natural leadership abilities”.

6. Provide Detailed Examples

The body paragraphs should provide specific examples of the volunteer’s stellar performance, contributions, and character. Use vivid details, statistics, and anecdotes to “show” not just “tell”:

• “Mary spent every Saturday for six months renovating the center’s facilities, restoring beautiful antique woodwork and upgrading lighting and flooring to create a warm, welcoming area for our clients.”

• “Through John’s social media campaign, our volunteer base expanded by 43% allowing us to provide after-school tutoring for all 150 students on our waiting list.”

7. Focus on Transferable Skills

Emphasize skills the volunteer developed through their service that would add value in a professional role – communication, project management, leadership, research, customer service, problem-solving, teamwork, etc. Quantify their impact in building these skills.

8. Reinforce Admirable Qualities

Spotlight personal qualities the volunteer exhibited that indicate work ethic, integrity, and motivation – responsibility, self-discipline, compassion, patience, initiative, flexibility, optimism, dedication. Use vivid examples to provide evidence of these traits in action.

9. Close With a Strong Recommendation

End by clearly stating you “highly recommend” or “enthusiastically recommend” the candidate and that you are “confident” or “certain” they possess the abilities and positive traits to excel in the role or program. Include a final summary of why they are an ideal candidate. Offer to provide more details if helpful.

10. Proofread Meticulously

Closely proofread the letter for any errors which could undermine your credibility as the recommender. Ask someone else to review it with fresh eyes too. Make sure all details – volunteer hours, statistics, accomplishments, qualities, and your contact info are absolutely accurate.

Sample Volunteer Letter of Recommendation

Today’s Date

Ms. Leigh Williams
Director of Admissions
Springtree University
123 College Way
Riverdale, MA 55555

Dear Ms. Williams:

I am pleased to recommend Susan Chester for admission to your Master of Social Work program at Springtree University. As founder and director of the Adult Literacy Council for the past 7 years, I have had the privilege of seeing Susan evolve into one of our most dedicated, skilled, and passionate volunteers in service to our mission.

Susan began volunteering with us her junior year of college. Our program matches volunteers with adult learners in one-on-one sessions to improve their reading, writing, and English language abilities. While pursuing her Psychology degree and working part-time, Susan still made time to volunteer 6-8 hours per week. She was always willing to fill in at the last minute if another volunteer canceled and often stayed late to accommodate learners’ schedules.

Over the past two years, Susan has provided tutoring and mentoring to 12 adult learners. She assessed their skill levels and challenges and customized training materials and activities for each to optimize their progress. Her kind, patient, and encouraging approach puts learners immediately at ease. She celebrates every goal achieved which motivates them to keep striving. On average, learners working with Susan for a year increase their abilities by 1.5 grade levels and 100% have said she was instrumental to their growth.

Beyond direct tutoring hours, Susan displays exceptional initiative. When she noticed a need for more virtual tutoring options during the pandemic, she singlehandedly researched best practices and designed our distance learning curriculum and tutor training program. Her leadership and expertise were invaluable in enabling us to continue serving all our learners despite COVID restrictions. She also introduced an outreach program at local companies to recruit volunteer tutors with HR expertise to assist learners with resume writing and interview skills.

In addition to Susan’s obvious passion for serving adult learners, she consistently demonstrates professionalism, responsibility, creativity, self-motivation, and commitment to social justice. I am confident these qualities will enable her to make significant contributions as she pursues her MSW. Please feel free to contact me if I can provide any further information. I offer my strongest recommendation for Susan without reservation.

Sincerely,
[Your name and signature]

Maria Sanchez
Director, Adult Literacy Council
[Contact info]

This sample highlights the volunteer’s consistent service tenure, key program contributions and quantifiable impact, standout skills developed through volunteering such as leadership and initiative, and transferable qualities like professionalism and motivation. It provides detailed anecdotes to showcase these attributes in action.

Tailoring Your Letter for Different Purposes

While all volunteer recommendation letters should highlight service commitment, work ethic, skills, and personal strengths, certain additional elements should be emphasized based on the letter’s specific purpose:

Academic program: Focus more on intellectual qualities – curiosity, quick learning, research abilities, academic achievements. Give examples of their willingness to take on challenges and leadership roles.

Employment: Emphasize work-related skills developed through volunteering like public speaking, event planning, budgeting,problem-solving, teamwork. Provide statistics quantifying their impact.

Licensure/certification: Spotlight mastery of key competencies required in the field through their volunteer work and continuing education pursued. Cite performance metrics that reinforce their proficiency.