Applause makes it easy to celebrate the people behind your mission.
Create a culture of recognition with simple, peer-to-peer appreciation linked to your charity's values.
Highlight achievements, acknowledge contributions and reinforce the behaviours that move your cause forward. Motivation grows when effort is seen.
Value added for your charity
Staff and volunteers feel valued and seen. Recognition is no longer reserved for annual appraisals. It happens every day, from anyone, to anyone. Retention improves and culture strengthens.
Core Features
Shouts (Peer Recognition) | Anyone can send a shout to a colleague: a quick, public acknowledgement of great work, linked to a charity value. Takes 30 seconds. |
Recognition Feed | All shouts appear in a shared, organisation-wide feed where everyone can see, like, and respond. Recognition becomes part of everyday culture, not a once-a-year event. |
Values Alignment | Every shout is tagged to one of your charity's values, so recognition reinforces the behaviours and culture you want to build. |
Recognition Reports | See who is being recognised, who is doing the recognising, and where engagement gaps exist, giving HR a real measure of team culture. |
Mobile Access | Fully mobile. Staff and volunteers can send and receive recognition from anywhere, at any time. Feels like a social media app, so adoption is fast. |
Notifications | Instant notifications via email, in-app, and mobile push, so recognition is felt in the moment, not discovered days later. |
How it works in practice
A Service Manager has just heard about a caseworker who went well beyond their remit to support a vulnerable client through a housing crisis, coordinating with three external agencies over two weeks.
They open Applause on their laptop, search for the caseworker's name, and tap Send a Shout.
They write a specific, heartfelt message describing exactly what the caseworker did and the difference it made to the client, tagging it to the charity value Putting People First.
The caseworker receives an instant notification. Their shout appears in the organisation-wide Recognition Feed, visible to every member of staff across all teams and locations.
Colleagues from the fundraising, finance, and volunteering teams all add their own comments and reactions.
The CEO sees the shout in the feed and shares it in the next all-staff update as an example of the charity's values in action.
How your charity's functions can use Applause
Leadership & Governance
"We want to build a culture where people feel valued, but leadership can't personally recognise everyone."
Make recognition a daily habit across the whole organisation, not just top-down from leadership.
Review the monthly recognition report to spot high performers and teams with low engagement.
Link recognition to your charity's values so every shout reinforces the culture you're building.
People & HR
"Staff turnover is a real problem. People leave because they don't feel appreciated."
Use recognition data to identify teams or individuals who are disengaged before they resign.
Build a recognition programme tied to your values, making appreciation part of everyday work rather than just annual reviews.
Track engagement trends over time to see whether recognition activity correlates with lower absence and higher retention.
Volunteering & Community
"Volunteers give their time for free. We want them to feel genuinely appreciated, not just thanked in a generic email."
Send personalised shouts to volunteers after events, visible to the whole organisation rather than just a private message.
Create a Volunteer of the Month recognition, nominated by peers and celebrated publicly in the Recognition Feed.
Help volunteers feel part of the team culture, as recognition is one of the strongest drivers of volunteer retention.
Fundraising & Income Generation
"Fundraising is high-pressure work. The team needs to feel their effort is noticed, especially after a tough campaign."
Celebrate campaign milestones publicly in the Recognition Feed to keep momentum high.
Recognise individual contributions during long campaigns to maintain motivation across the team.
Use peer recognition to build team cohesion across remote fundraising staff.
Programme & Service Delivery
"Frontline staff work incredibly hard but rarely hear that their efforts are making a difference."
Send a shout in 30 seconds from any device, as recognition does not need to be a formal process.
See your team's recognition history in one view, which is useful context for appraisals and development conversations.
Build a culture where great work is acknowledged publicly, not just noted privately in a manager's notebook.