Signature Block Summer Camp Volunteer Health Officer Application Template Made Easy

Signature block summer camp volunteer health officer application template

hi everyone my name is sheryl smith and today i am presenting a video short on finding and retaining volunteers um i'm sure if you are in the nonprofit arena meaning you are a non-profit leader in any respect board member ceo executive director any management position and you are concerned with volunteerism because volunteers are probably individuals that your organization duly needs right now and so this particular training is being brought to you by dueling non-profit services and the community heroes program supports nonprofits anywhere in the us with grant writing training consulting and the community heroes program is a program of dual and nonprofit services that is centrally focused on helping nonprofits that are small to mid-size position themselves for funding we do have a disclaimer for this particular video short because we're going to be talking about a few legal things and i want you to know that the materials that we're providing are for educational purposes only it truly is beyond the scope of this mini training to cover every possible activity and or cautionary rule that involves volunteers because your circumstances are going to be different we want to make sure that you contact your own legal counsel to expand your knowledge verify the accuracy of this information and for any specific issues or questions related to volunteers now we're going to engage in our video short in understanding the role of the volunteer where we find the volunteer and what can go wrong i want to also share that at the end of the training i'm pretty sure you're going to glean some nuggets that are that's going to help you in your nonprofit organization please remember to like us when you're all done and to subscribe so that we can continue to bring you relevant content that'll help you in your daily activities this particular webinar will video comes from a webinar and if you'd like to see the entire webinar feel free to click on the link below thank you now as we consider the volunteer role we can't just assume that any warm body is going to be okay we actually have to plan and recruit and i know that many times organizations are in desperate need for volunteers so when you get the opportunity to get somebody in to volunteer any warm body it's understandable that you would jump at the chance but it's understandable but not wise when you bring on a volunteer they're going to represent your organization in one way or another so it's so important that you get your house in order first and make sure that you are aware of the legal issues that are involved with volunteers and they are not small issues so let's talk about some of that and so what do i mean when i say get your house in order well you want to prepare for your volunteer you want to make sure that you've got an organizational history that's written out for your volunteer because they're going to need to know some information about the organization they're volunteering for and so if you haven't already done that it's important that you get the summary in writing that includes your history your mission your values and it's really helpful to also create if you haven't already done so your organizational chart that org chart is super helpful because it serves as a visual presentation that's going to show the structure of your organization with relative ranks of each job or position in your organization and because you know you're going to be going after volunteers you might also include where the volunteers fall within your organization and who they would report to and then there's your program description prepare a thorough program description that includes your target population your business hours and your program priorities and that's going to help your volunteer to get really grounded and in terms of their role this is where you're going to write out what each volunteer role will do and when they are needed guys this is so important we just assume that because you know what's going on in your organization and what's needed that any thinking person could just come on in and assume that role is not the case and it also isn't fair and so we want to make sure that we prepare them with the information that they'll need to be successful and that includes your volunteer agreement that voluntary agreement is going to have mutual covenants it's going to have covenants that talk about what you will do and also what the volunteer will do so for example you the organization what do you agree to do to make this role or this position you know well for your volunteer is it that you're going to provide training supervision um support what will you do what are your covenants as the organization and in turn you're going to look at what do you expect from the volunteer um naturally you're going to expect them to show up on time for an assignment that they've agreed to you're going to expect them to be professional and courteous to the people that they serve you're going to maybe even include a term now terms are important i like them because i love to make sure there's mutual commitment but just know the volunteer doesn't work for you and even if they did they could still resign but that commitment just helps paint a mental issue image for them in terms of how long you might need their service and so the volunteer agreement is really really a great thing to have on hand and then there's reimbursement now we're going to talk later about employment law for your nonprofit but in in this segment of getting your house in order you have to know there might be a time where you don't pay your volunteer but you will reimburse them they may spend money out of their own pocket for supplies or materials you may even have a policy where you reimburse them for mileage those things are okay and so knowing that you're interested in volunteers means that you should also be preparing that policy so that when you bring a non-profit uh volunteer on they're able to read that policy you're not scrambling to think about what it is that policy should say you already have it in order and then you also have a reimbursement form give them a copy of it so that they can see that if it's for travel they're documenting their mileage if it's for receipts they're proving that with a copy of the receipt the original receipt etc and so get those things um you want to get those things in order and then there's the volunteer application and we're definitely going to talk about the application and the background checks here shortly but we just want to make sure that you know that you don't want to bring in a volunteer without doing those prerequisite type things um because you don't want a warm body that you know that you can't trust or you don't know you want to make sure that you've got some basic information and again we're going to cover that um we're going to cover that here shortly and so this is what i mean when i say get your house in order before you bring that volunteer aboard fairness to them and in fairness to you and so now your house is in order what next what what comes next well you've got your house in order you know what the position is and so now you actually have to go out and recruit them and how do you do that well obviously you can recruit by word of mouth um and that's you know anybody that you talk to you letting them know that you're interested in volunteers and how volunteers will be appreciated that could be on the radio a public service announcement you might create ads and flyers that other people can help you to give out it could be that you could be it should be that you are using your board to help you network with their close friends and their family i mean their colleagues and so that is a very helpful thing because your board knows people so have them bring on the folks that they know like and trust you could look at your website if you have one already and i strongly encourage you to get one um if you don't and so a side note 48 and 48 helps you create websites for free so if you don't have a website and you just need to get one consider consider that option but your website should be drawing traffic if you're using google on for non-profit because they'll give you adwords ten thousand dollars worth of grants for adwords that sends traffic your way and so when traffic does come your way you want to make it prominent and known that you are seeking and could use the help of volunteers you could also use volunteer matching websites which we're going to spend time talking about in detail um volunteer fairs and we're in a pandemic across the country so i'm not sure if we're having very many of those but when we're out of this and eventually we will be then you can go to that and then last but certainly not least use your social media channels and the social media channels of the volunteers and your board and everybody connected to your organization and so you'll get your um you'll get your strategy together for recruiting your volunteer but now where do you find them and so you can have the best laid plans you sure could you could have the recruitment strategy all laid out but if you don't know where the fight to find your volunteers it's almost for not and so obviously i'm going to start with family and friends i'm going to start with your professional networks because that's just expected we talked a little bit about that and sometimes you don't get the volunteers that you need or want because you don't ask and so i know that a lot of us come from you know big families some of them us from small families but asking a family member or a friend and letting them know what your needs are doesn't necessarily mean they're going to accept this wonderful opportunity but they may know somebody who will and so you see how you're expanding your reach there and then your own professional um networks you might be a part of multi-disciplinary groups you may know other nonprofits who would be willing to volunteer to support you in small remember micro um settings where they've got simple things to do and so you could also use like i mentioned in the previous slide the reach of your board but then there's also schools and universities and local businesses and so when we think about the schools and universities you guys don't sleep on that there are a lot of schools who are filled with young people who are very enthusiastic and want to get engaged in community service so get in touch with the student services department of your local university or college to see if you can't post your volunteer opportunity there and then local businesses we often think that businesses are untouchable or unreachable but to the contrary those community businesses are sometimes looking for ways for for themselves to get involved with the um with their community and it could even mean just opportunities for their employees and so if you're interested in that if it's a small non-profit you don't have a lot of layers to go through but if it's a not nonprofit business you don't have a lot of layers to go through but if it's a larger business what you want to do is contact their community relations department it might be called community affairs or corporate giving um department i know a lot of times it's social responsibility department so it just depends smaller businesses not so much larger businesses usually have departments so contact those departments to see if there are opportunities for their um employees to volunteer and let me tell you a lot of times what you'll find is that employers will offer pre-defined number of volunteer service hours in lieu of workout hours for their employees so that their employees can volunteer and contribute without missing pay and so if they don't already know that suggested suggest it to these business owners especially the small business owners it'll go a long way and then there's also clubs and groups and then faith-based and so what i mean by clubs and groups reaching out to social and professional clubs campus-based sororities and fraternities we didn't talk about that earlier and other community groups might be helpful and then with permission you might seek volunteers from your place of worship oftentimes you know you can actually do that either informally or on a formal basis approach your place of worship to see if you can't let or make them aware of your volunteer needs and you know i like to say don't sleep on things don't sleep on those clients that you've served they're already passionate about your organization you've helped them and this might be a way for them to give back and create awareness for the organization that's really made a difference in their lives and then if you've got any volunteers right now already your current volunteers are instrumental they can actually get their friends and their family members involved with volunteering and so you can see how we're just really expanding our reach just knowing where to find the volunteers we talked about social media use your social media strategies to promote your current organization volunteer achievements or to publicly thank the volunteers you already have because when you do that you know people want to get involved with a good thing and so make sure that you're on social media and you're really promoting those things and then also asking for what you need and last but certainly not least there are volunteer matching sites all over and all over you guys and so if you're not familiar with some of these then check them out the all for good catch of fire just sir the list goes on and on these are just a few of them and again this is such a great topic but there's so much that we could share that's beyond the scope of what the purpose of this training is but these matching sides are wonderful there's not a lot of red tape involved usually you go and sign your organization up and you can start to look for volunteer opportunities very very very few of them will charge you very few and there are some caveats to some of these though so i want to point out on the far right where we see the tape root um foundation that's project based support and so you you can't just necessarily ask for a volunteer if you need something like we mentioned earlier hr support marketing support somebody to help you put strategies together that's where tape root is really instrumental and it's free yeah it's free they will um you'll have experts that just you know join in and to help you figure some things out and you've got expert support um one brick i like them but one brick is really limited to how many about eight to ten cities and so you got boston chicago new orleans new york i can't think of all in san francisco seattle my brain washington dc so when you go to one brick it's a great organization but it just depends on your geographic location because we support non-profits all over the country i'd be remiss if i didn't bring if i didn't bring them up so i wanted to make sure that if you're in that neck of the woods that you do consider them and then the caveat for americorps i know you guys have either i'm sorry americorps it's got that p but that p is silent so the caveat for americorps is that it's government and so they will provide full-time members um to support your organization if you're a public agency 501c3 but that there is some things that you do need to go through to be a part of that and you know first and foremost you've got to have you know a site a location you got to be able to sponsor these folks and so but if you can get involved with and there's a long application process but if you can get involved with americorps vista the great news is is that these volunteers will commit to supporting you for an entire year as though they're full-time employees they aren't but as though they are and so that's a wonderful thing and they'll dedicate themselves just to your organization which means they're not allowed to volunteer for other organizations or take on jobs and things like that because they are volunteering just for you the government supplements some nominal pay for them and whenever possible i can tell you that i don't think it's required but the government certainly wants to know that you're willing to pay a little bit to um to supplement their living expenses and so that's the caveat for some of them but the other ones that are listed here go for it because you know you don't have all those um red tape red flag caveats um lastly i didn't post the international opportunities or the youth opportunities but they i do have that information located in our resource um section of this training so at the end you will see that i do have some websites for you to go to if you're interested in international um volunteer opportunities and so that's going to be forthcoming and websites that you can go to for that and so these are some of the places where you could actually find your volunteers and so you can see how if you really utilize these um opportunities there really isn't any reason that you all don't get one or two volunteers in your organization to help you now what could go wrong you know we have to talk about this uh you know when we think about what could go wrong we've got to think about it on both sides what can go wrong meaning injuries to your volunteers and injuries to that are caused by your volunteers and so it's important to remember that even with the best laid plans accidents can happen that result in injuries to your volunteers and so workplace safety laws such as the occupational safety and health act osha they apply to volunteers you've got to know that in addition claims of discrimination harassment including sexual harassment and failure to accommodate your volunteers disability if there are any that can all lead to injury to your volunteer and when we think about those with disabilities if the accommodation isn't financially possible for you everybody understands that but you will have to document that and so you wanted to consider describing your essential functions for the volunteer role in writing like we mentioned before and this is going to help to protect you right so you want to document this is what we need and so if you do get a volunteer who's incapable of fulfilling that need just go ahead and document document document it's going to help you to avoid claims against your organization injuries that's caused by volunteers this is most often what we hear about and this can include some form of harassment assault negligence crimes relating to children your non-profit could be inadvertently liable for these acts of crime especially in the cases where there's neglect in hiring or failure to adequately supervise or train your volunteers when you neglect hiring and retention um policies that you should be in place then that's going to leave you wide open um for lawsuit it does and so this includes things that your organization either directly knew or guys things that you should have known about that volunteer had you done the proper background to prevent it and so volunteers also have the potential to injure your nonprofit itself not just the people that you serve if um a volunteer acts as an agent for your organization or the organization holds a volunteer out as an agent for the organization whether you do it intentionally or unintentionally that volunteer could legally bind your organization so you've got to make sure that you put things in place that really do um protect you and so we want you to know about the laws what laws apply when you're dealing with volunteers so there's a couple of them that we're going to mention and remember this isn't all-inclusive there are a lot of laws out there there are a lot of things you can do to protect yourself we're going to touch on a few and then at the end i'm going to give you some resources that you can go to so you can have a better scope of what's involved and how to protect yourself but what we're going to start with the volunteer protection act many of you have heard of this act because it protects volunteers who are engaged with 501 c3 organizations but it won't protect the organization itself they'll protect the volunteers that's what that law does the law provides that a volunteer including your board member cannot be liable for acts that occur within the scope of his or her authority as a volunteer to your organization and there's certain acts in in incidents such as um car accidents crime or hate crimes sexual offenses those things are excluded okay that didn't count but in the normal course of action if they're doing good then you've got some limited protection for your volunteer and then there's charitable immunity in general in many states i'm in the state of georgia so i know it's here it's also in many other states where the charitable organization isn't liable for its officers or employees negligence unless the organization failed to exercise ordinary care when hiring so we're going to talk about that or retain competent officers and employees and volunteers and so you've got to know that you're immune when you do the right thing in the front when you begin with the end in mind but if you don't take the right steps up front to make sure that you've protected the organization by doing screenings in background and just really vetting that volunteer you could be liable and your charitable immunity could be waived um you could also get an insurance policy i will say that reminding me when i said wage and charitable immunity is waived if your organization has an insurance policy but that's only to the extent that the policy covers the liability so if the policy doesn't cover the liability then we go back we fall back on charitable immunity but if your policy does cover the liability then it's you know it's waging you use your policy instead and so your directors and your officers and many of your directors like we mentioned are their volunteer and so if they're in if they're volunteering for your organization they do enjoy limited protection from liability as long as they're acting in good faith and they're acting within the scope of their duties assigned and of course and i can't mention this enough exceptions to this protection include damages or injury that's caused by malice or willful conduct so if it's negligent if it's willful if it's purposeful then they're not protected and so that includes your volunteers and then there is the wage and labor laws and so please be aware that the fair labels labor standards act flsa governs minimum wage child labor laws and overtime pay for employees and so you're and you want to make sure that your your volunteers aren't employees now how would they be employees well when you start paying them and so we don't want you to pay your volunteer don't be tempted to give them a little something for helping you out because when you do that then you um you turn them into an employee or contractor and then you're subject to federal and state laws for employees so you can always reimburse your volunteer we mentioned that earlier for their expenses you can even give occasional non-monetary gifts but rewarding your volunteers in a non-financial way is appropriate but when you start to reward them with pay that's inappropriate for the volunteer okay so you want to remember that your volunteer and actually the federal law has some guidelines and i'm going to read a couple that's in part this isn't all inclusive but one of the guidelines for determining that they are a volunteer is that they volunteer on their services freely and that they are doing work that benefits the agency more than it benefits them that your volunteer doesn't replace your employee so you can't have a full-time volunteer that replaces your employee you can't do that and your volunteer doesn't expect accept or receive compensation and so you want to adhere please to the volunteer wage and labor laws that are out there trust me guys those laws are in place for your protection thank you for viewing this training on finding and retaining volunteers remember this was a training short to view the entire training click on the link below and we're hoping that you were able to glean some juicy nuggets that will help you in your non-profit as you bring on volunteers train and retain them please remember to like us with the like button below and to subscribe to this channel so that you don't miss any future videos that are all designed to help the small to mid-size non-profit thank you