Volunteer Newsletters, Part 2: Components

When writing your volunteer newsletter, you can include all the below components, or just the ones that make sense for you. You may find that one month you include one component, but not the next month. ALWAYS include invitations to upcoming volunteer opportunities!

We recommend taking an afternoon, and pre-writing your newsletters for the next six months, in advance. Later, you can fill in specific details that you don’t yet know.

Start with a SHORT INTRO: a few words of welcome, to start the newsletter off on a friendly note.

Secondly, include a ROUND UP of upcoming volunteer opportunities. this can be a listicle, or a paragraph with hyperlinks.

You third section is a RECAP of recent volunteer opportunities. This should include a few photos, and helps the volunteer understand the impact they make. It allows you to show how great your opportunities are, and thank those who helped.

Fourthly, offer your readers some ORGANIZATONAL UPDATES. this section keeps volunteers in the know of what’s happening with your organization. You could introduce new employees, share good news about a new grant, talk about how your programming is going, or share out impact stats.

Lastly, you can include a few buttons on other NEEDS. These should be small and at the bottom, include a link to donate or to purchase off of your Amazon Wishlist. It never hurts to let people know how else they can support you, though it’s best not to be pushy.

Things NOT to include in your newsletter:

• Overly personal or unrelated information (like, Janet’s dog finally recovered from his leg break!)

• Typos, font inconsistencies

• Giant or teeny-tiny fonts

• Overwhelming fonts – stick to standard fonts like Times New Roman or Arial

• Pixelated, blurry images

Hot tips:

• Consider using online AI tools, like ChatGPT or Copy.AI to help generate content for your newsletter. Check out our guide on ChatGPT here.