Introducing #ThankQThursday
It's not long until Volunteer's Week, the nation's biggest celebration of volunteering, and to mark the event we're launching a new way of recognising the thousands of people that give their time to volunteer.
What are we talking about? Using the power of social media platform Twitter we want to start a new trend where charities and individuals accross the country use Thursdays as an opportunity to say a big thank you to their volunteers and to organisations that have helped or supported them.
Why Thursday? Twitter already has a number of specific days that encourage people to recognise or follow individuals such as #FollowFriday or to support charities such as #CharityTuesday. These are very popular so we thought it would be good to launch a new day that is dedicated to thanking people for helping out.
How will it work? Simple, if you already have a Twitter profile, just create the hash tag #ThankQThursday (or #TQT) and then Tweet the name of the volunteer or organisation that you want to thank - if the person you're thanking has a Twitter profile you can include that, or a link to a website if you're thanking a charity or other organisation. Once you've Tweeted your ThankQ it will appear in the hash tag feed so everyone can follow it - that way we can start to see just how many people accross the country are being recognised in this way.
Don't have a Twitter account? Now would be a good time to get one - Twitter is fast becoming the primary way for people and organisations to communicate with each other and you might be surpised at how many volunteers and charities are already on it. It's free to use - just go to the Twitter website and create a profile. If you want more help why not go on this training course which is subsidised for charities and voluntary groups to go on.
Who should we thank? Anyone that you want to. It's up to you - as well as thanking volunteers, you could be thanking a charity or community group that has helped you, a company that has donated something to you - it's your call.
Whose idea is this? The idea came from the Modernising Volunteering partnership, part of the Improving Support programme which aims to help charities be more effective.
@Susan_J_Ellis: fantabulous :) So good to see the idea being spread.
Thanks for the information. I did indeed make it this week's "News from the Field" item at http://www.energizeinc.com/news/2010-jan-june.html -- it therefore shows up this week on the Energize homepage: www.energizeinc.com
Good luck with the campaign. And almost happy Volunteers' Week to you all!
Hi there @Susan_J_Ellis we're hoping this will become a year round Twitter thing - like #CT and #FF - but we're using the build up to UK Volunteers' Week to try and gain some momentum. It would be brilliant if this went global so do feel free to promote it far and wide.
We are keen to promote this on i-volunteer too and will be looking at introducing a hash tag feed on the site - but we want to wait until it picks up before we do this.
Just had a look at the tweets sent yesterday, your first Thursday -- looks like it will be popular! Can you please clarify something, though? Are you trying to "institutionalize" (you can tell I'm American by the zeds) ThankQThursday as a year-round day to post appreciation? Or is this something you want to do between now and National Volunteers Week? Or is Thursday irrelevant and you just want people to use the #tag in order to aggregate the thank you's? And, finally, since you're doing this on Twitter and not on i-volunteer, are you attempting to make this a GLOBAL activity? I want to publicize it via Energize as our news of the week, so will appreciate any information. Thanks!
Like it :)
I'm sure that volunteers would not object to being thanked and I'd be surprised if any charity was concerned about being seen to be in need of help - and those that do will choose not to take part. The volunteering industry has for years highlighted the importance of reward and recognition and this is just another way to do it.
@paddienls I like your notion of promoting groups and yes @TimeTalentExeter thanking groups of employee volunteers is a great idea, go for it!
Interesting - It might also be a nice way to recognise the support that Employer Supported Volunteers give too. Fits with the earlier mention of "Collective Contribution" too, whilst raising community awareness of local employers actively supporting volunteering.
Interesting idea - would recommend thanking vols privately and letting them know you'd like to #ThankQThursday them. Might be good at the same time to explain what that means :-) Same would go for any kind of public recognition. Another use of #ThankQThursday could be to thank groups of volunteers and recognise their collective contribution and achievements. Could this as an op to point to what these are?
I agree, it seems a really good idea.
Will volunteers want to be identified by name and surname publicly ?
It might be a good idea to ask them first.
Will charities be anxious about admitting that they needed help with particular tasks ?
What a great idea and a great way for volunteer managers to use Twitter.