Nonprofit Blueprint for Improved Volunteer Recruitment and Screening in 2017

Whether your nonprofit organization’s volunteers serve on your premises, at an offsite location, or remotely, it’s important to make sure you are working with volunteers who have the best interest of your constituents in mind – and who are helping you work toward your organization’s mission.  By working with a qualified screening provider like America’s Charities’ partner, Verified Volunteers, you can easily dot your I’s and cross your t’s to ensure volunteers pose no risk to your organization.

To improve your nonprofit’s volunteer recruitment strategy and community outreach plans, consider these five findings from Verified Volunteers’ “Volunteer Screening Trends & Best Practices Report: 2017”:

1. Volunteer Numbers Are Growing

Retiring Baby Boomers with time on their hands began to swell the volunteer market a decade or so ago. That fact, coupled with a new generation of socially conscious Millennials, has brought new emphasis to volunteerism in recent years. Although staffing is a perpetual challenge for nonprofits and helping organizations, the organizations that use volunteers are using more of them.

2. Training Programs for Volunteers Are on the Rise

As the range and complexity of volunteer opportunities increases, training becomes important to a wider range of volunteer positions. Formal training has benefits beyond the obvious; it establishes standards of competency; brands the organization as not only caring but capable; and quickly lets new volunteers know what will be required of them.

3. More Organizations Are Serving Vulnerable Populations

Vulnerable populations include the economically disadvantaged, racial and ethnic minorities, children from low-income families, the elderly, the homeless, the uninsured, and those with chronic health conditions, including severe mental illness.

4. Challenges in Volunteer Screening Are Changing

Despite the fact that organizations are spending more on individual volunteer background checks, such checks are not their biggest expense. Rather, staffing—recruiting and retaining qualified staff in an economy in which there is a “war for talent”—has replaced background screening as the most costly item for most organizations.

5. More Organizations Expect to do More Volunteer Background Checks

More than ever, organizations that serve the public, and especially a vulnerable public, want to know and have confidence in their volunteers. In most cases, none are decreasing the number of checks they perform, and far fewer organizations are “staying the same” in terms of checks.

Upcoming Verified Volunteers Webinars:

Available now:  5 Things You Need to Know About Volunteer Background Checks in 2017

April 13, 2017: Enhancing the Volunteer Lifecycle, Part 1: Developing Position Descriptions

May 11, 2017: Enhancing the Volunteer Lifecycle, Part 2: Recruiting & Onboarding

June 15, 2017: Enhancing the Volunteer Lifecycle, Part 3: Engaging Volunteers for Impact & Success

America’s Charities member discount

As a benefit of being an America’s Charities nonprofit member:

• Your organization is eligible for a 20% discount on Verified Volunteers’ vetting services (with no setup or annual fees), enabling your organization to vet volunteers more safely, easily, and cost-effectively.
• You will also benefit from Verified Volunteers’ free volunteer management software. Hosted in the cloud, the volunteer tracking tools, filters and reminders help to significantly reduce administrative time.  Verified Volunteers’ programs save 13 minutes on average per onboarded volunteer.

Click here to learn more and start taking advantage of this incredible benefit.