How to Write a Great Recommendation for a Volunteer

Have you been asked to write a letter of recommendation for a volunteer?  Service is a great résumé builder, and most volunteers know it.  It is common for VIP AmeriCorps members or staff at our nonprofit partner sites to be asked to write recommendations for volunteers as they seek out jobs or spots in schools.

Here are some tips for writing great recommendation letters:

• Make it professional.  Address it as a business letter and write in complete sentences and paragraphs (unless you’d like to include a few bullet points among your paragraphs).  Check here for some advice on writing a business letter. 

• Explain who you are, confirm the volunteer's position, and state the amount of time they’ve been volunteering with your organization within the first paragraph of your letter.

• Include the volunteer’s strengths, skills, and talents.

•  Be truthful.  Lying won’t help you, won’t help the organization you’re writing to, and it won’t ultimately help your volunteer if you’ve made them seem to be a different individual then they actually are.  Lying will reflect poorly on you and your organization.  Boast of facts and traits you know the person to possess, just don’t over-embellish.

• Be concise.  Try for no longer than one printed page.  Interviewers are often short on time and will not take the time to read through a lengthy letter.

• Be specific.  Use specific examples of the individual's successes or how they live out the character traits that you list.  If you want an even better idea of what the volunteer's achievements have been outside of your organization that back up the character traits you address in the letter, ask them for a copy of their résumé to look over.

• If the letter is for a specific position, make it reflect that position.   Ask for the position description from the volunteer.  In your letter, explain how the characteristics you know the volunteer possesses will fit well into that specific position.  

• If the volunteer is asking for a general letter, include many of their skills.   This will help the volunteer as they may use the letter for a wide array of positions.

• If you don’t know the person or their work well, it’s okay to politely decline.  Recommend instead that they ask someone who they work more closely with – someone who could give them a reference that is more special.