5 ways to celebrate and support your befrienders this Volunteers’ Week

1st June 2026

It’s Volunteers’ Week! 🎉 Befriending is possible thanks to the incredible contribution of volunteers befrienders who give their time to help reduce loneliness, one conversation at time. Here are 5 ways you can celebrate and support your befrienders…

Learn how to retain your volunteers

With increasing pressures on everyone’s time, energy and bank balances, these are challenging times to recruit volunteers. This makes volunteer retention even more important – you can spend less time marketing to fill volunteer roles and more time delivering your service.

Our new Volunteer Retention e-learning course guides you through the 7 Principles of Volunteer Retention, providing practical tools to strengthen support, communication, and recognition throughout the entire volunteer journey. By building robust training, setting clear and realistic expectations, and fostering strong relationships between volunteers, staff, and service users, you can ensure that your volunteers stay with your organisation for the long run.

To celebrate Volunteers’ Week 2026, we’re offering a 10% discount until Sunday 7 June 2026. Use the code celebratevw26 on checkout to get the full course for just £27 (or £36 for non-members). Purchase now

Boost your skills in volunteer recruitment

Finding the right volunteers is a cornerstone of a quality befriending service. If your project is struggling to reach potential volunteers, check out our upcoming Recruiting Volunteers course. The course includes 4 hours of live online training and a bundle of digital resources, such as templates, checklists and other support materials.

You’ll leave with fresh ideas and practical tools to help you find the incredible volunteers you need. Book now

Share our free e-learning for befrienders

At the start of their befriending journey, lots of volunteers feel nervous about how to start conversations, build a strong connection and support their match well. That’s why we developed our free “How to…” series for befrienders, which offers a short, accessible introduction to the core elements of befriending. You can learn:

• How to have your first conversation
• How to create social connections
• How to provide appropriate support

Share these courses with your volunteers to help them approach their befriending match with confidence. Access the e-learning

Thank your volunteers with the Volunteers’ Week resources

Let your volunteers know how much you value their contributions with a Volunteers’ Week shoutout. Share a thank you on the Volunteers’ Week Padlet to let them know the difference they make to your organisation and your community.

On the Volunteers’ Week website, you can also download all the resources you need to celebrate, including social media templates, banners, thank you cards, bunting and more.

Get top tips from the Befriender Training Toolkit

Preparing training materials for volunteers takes a lot of time and effort. You’ve got to decide what your befrienders need to learn, create the materials, plan the facilitation… it can feel like a daunting task. Our Befriender Training Toolkit offers a solid foundation for you to design your befriender training programme. It includes training materials in multiple formats, background reading, printable handouts and supportive resources for facilitators. Read our Toolkit Top Tips blog to discover how you can make the most of it.

The Befriender Training Toolkit is an exclusive resource for members of Befriending Networks. Members can also take advantage of policy and procedure templates and Good Practice Guides to ensure your befriending project is delivering a safe and supportive service for volunteers and service users. Find out more about becoming a member on our Join Befriending Networks page or at an Introduction to Befriending Networks session.

And a bonus…

Take part in Befriending Week (1 – 7 November)

Celebrating and supporting volunteers is a year-round activity and one way to recognise your befrienders later in the year is our annual Befriending Week campaign, which takes places every year from 1 – 7 November.

Throughout the week, supporters raise awareness about befriending, share its positive impacts and recognise the incredible contributions of volunteers and staff. The theme for 2026 is Supporting each other through meaningful connections.

You can access resources to thank your volunteers, including certificates, decorations and activities. New activities, including thank you cards, will be available soon. Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest updates.

You can also join us on Wednesday 19 June for an interactive Befriending Week planning session, where you can gather ideas for how to take part and make the most of Befriending Week.