Guide: Volunteer Screening Best Practices

Updated: 7/26/2024

Volunteers are the face of your organization; they interact directly with the public and beneficiaries as your representatives. While you may naturally want to assume the best of everyone who supports your organization, volunteer background checks are necessary.

What Are Volunteer Background Checks?

Volunteer background checks are screening measures to see whether a potential volunteer has engaged in any activity compromising their ability to serve your organization. Volunteer screening protects your organization from lawsuits, liability, public relations crises, and embezzlement.

Volunteers are often required to work with sensitive data, vulnerable populations, and organizational resources, so screening is imperative to ensure your volunteers can be trusted. The cost of not doing volunteer background checks is just too high.

Why You Need Volunteer Background Checks

Your nonprofit is a force for good, and your volunteers must be aligned with your mission and values. According to a 2018 report by Sterling Talent Solutions, most nonprofit organizations use volunteers as anywhere from 50-75% of their team members, so you should approach volunteer screening as thoroughly as you would employee screening.

Volunteer background checks help you:

• Protect beneficiaries: The overwhelming majority (77%) of nonprofits work directly with vulnerable populations, including children, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities. Your volunteers will be interacting with these beneficiaries, and it is critical to keep them safe.
• Create a safe environment: Volunteers often handle sensitive donor and beneficiary data, as well as organizational funds. Volunteer background checks ensure that volunteers can trusted with this kind of information. They also help protect your paid staff and other volunteers from hostile working environments.
• Support your organization’s reputation: Volunteers represent your nonprofit. They are often the organization’s most visible elements, and even if they aren’t paid employees, your organization will have to answer for their words and actions during official events. Volunteer screening assists you in finding volunteers who will be good spokespeople for your organization.
• Reduce losses and liability: Screened volunteers are better suited to their tasks, and they are less likely to expose your organization to public backlash, unnecessary resource loss, and civil or criminal liability.
• Remain in compliance with regulations: While there are no blanket volunteer screening mandates, certain volunteer roles may require a background check, especially if your volunteers are going to be working in schools or hospitals.

Nonprofits often run on limited resources, and even one incident of theft, violence, or sexual harassment can do serious harm. Therefore, regardless of how your organization uses volunteers, volunteer background checks are always beneficial.

How to Conduct Volunteer Screening

The volunteer screening process should be incorporated into your recruitment protocols. Once a volunteer has applied or registered for an event, you should run a volunteer background check.

Consider screening your volunteers for:

• Fingerprints and criminal records
• Civil action
• Sexual offenses
• ID verification
• Motor vehicle checks
• Education/license verification
• Employment
• Drug tests
• Credit reports
• Social media usage

While some screening criteria, like ID verification, should be used for all volunteers, you do not necessarily need to check every volunteer for all of them. The specific factors you choose will depend on the volunteer’s role. For example, if you need a volunteer to drive an organizational vehicle, a motor vehicle check is a must. If a volunteer will be handling organizational funds, criminal records, and credit scores may be the most pertinent.

Look into your state and federal regulations for more information on how to access this information for your volunteer background checks. Legislation like the Fair Credit Reporting Act, National Child Protection Act, and the Volunteers for Children Act will impact how you access information for volunteer background checks and which verifications are legally required for specific roles.

Volunteer Screening Best Practices

• Create a clear background check policy: Make sure that you have robust volunteer screening policies in place so that every volunteer receives the necessary background checks for their positions. This policy should also outline specific offenses that will automatically disqualify an applicant from volunteering. Communicate this information to both interviewers and applicants.
• Consider partnering with a background check firm: There are plenty of third-party companies, like PeopleFacts and Sterling, who specialize in background checks for nonprofit organizations. They will be able to help you conduct thorough, regulation-compliant volunteer screening. You should also make use of free, publicly available government resources, like the National Sex Offender Public Registry.
• Review applications carefully: Applications are your first point of contact with a potential volunteer. Take the time to thoroughly read every application, and if something seems odd, unclear, or too good to be true, mark it for further investigation.
• Conduct volunteer interviews: Volunteer interviews give you the chance to meet the volunteers, ask questions, and see if they would be a good fit for your current team. Pay close attention to the volunteer’s verbal responses and body language.
• Require references: References can give you important insight into a potential volunteer’s skills, personality, and history. When you contact a reference, ask if they would have any concerns about the applicant working with your organization or fulfilling a specific role. Require multiple references, and be sure to verify every referrer’s identity.
• Get everything in writing: Document every portion of the volunteer screening process and store it in your volunteer database. Make sure you have: a volunteer application, volunteer consent to the background check, a signed volunteer contract, and a signed volunteer code of conduct.
• Have a trial period: Hire new volunteers on a trial basis, anywhere from one event to one month, to see how well they perform on your team. Observe them closely during the trial period to decide whether you would like to work with the volunteer long-term. If the volunteer does anything that makes you uncomfortable, feel free to terminate the trial.
• Consider renewal background checks: The initial volunteer screening does not guarantee that a volunteer will always have a clean record. If a volunteer holds a particularly important position that is susceptible to abuse, consider re-screening them on an annual or semi-annual basis. You should also re-screen volunteers who move from lower-level positions to roles with higher amounts of responsibility.

What To Do If You Uncover Something During Volunteer Screening

Just because a background check turns up criminal activity, that does not necessarily mean that the applicant cannot be a useful member of your volunteer base. For example, a 50-year-old volunteer who was arrested for trespassing as a teenager and hasn’t engaged in any criminal activity since does not pose a high risk.

Approach criminal history with nuance and empathy while also protecting your organization. Consider the following factors:

• When was the conviction?
• Does the applicant have more than one conviction?
• What was the crime? Was it an infraction (like a speeding ticket), a misdemeanor, or a felony?
• What was the nature of the crime: violent or non-violent?
• Would the crime disqualify the applicant from working with vulnerable populations, like children?
• Did the applicant complete any rehabilitation activities?

Every case will be different, and you will ultimately have to decide whether you can trust an individual with a criminal record.

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