International Volunteer Day (IVD) was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1985. IVD is now celebrated worldwide on December 5 each year with thousands of volunteers involved in a range of IVD initiatives including clean-up campaigns, conferences, exhibitions, morning teas and many other activities all aimed to highlight the role of volunteers in their communities.

Below are some of the ways that your organisation can celebrate IVD:

1. Organise an afternoon tea and present each of your volunteers with an International Volunteer Day certificate, downloadable free from the Volunteering Australia website.
   
   
2. Contact your local paper and ask them to feature your volunteers as a local story to highlight IVD. Don't forget to give the local paper at least two weeks advance notice.
   
   
3. Use IVD to present long service certificates or other recognition to your long serving volunteers.
   
   
4. Have an open day at your premises to demonstrate the contribution volunteers make. Ask the local paper to help with publicity.
   
   
5. Use IVD as a recruiting opportunity by asking your current volunteers to bring along a friend to a morning tea - have a brief presentation to the group of potential volunteers incorporated into a thank you acknowledgement to your current volunteers.
   
   
6. Arrange for your organisation's CEO or most senior person to send a personal note of thanks to your volunteers acknowledging their efforts on IVD.
   
   
7. Use IVD as a platform to release your volunteer statistics. How many volunteers, what volunteers contribute to your organisation etc.
   
   
8. On IVD acknowledge any training milestones achieved by your volunteers. Reminding people that you support your volunteers with training is an excellent message.
   
   
9. Use IVD as a launch date for a fundraising campaign, especially where you may be able to gain support from your local paper.
   
   
10. Organise a display at your local shopping centre. IVD is a great lever to use to gain that important, high traffic free display space.