Risk and Liability in Volunteer Programs; Legal Issues
Articles and book excerpts on this topic
- Barriers to Preventing Abuse, from the book Child Abuse Prevention Primer for Your Organization
- Can Nonprofit Boards Vote by Email? by By Gene Takagi and Emily Nicole Chan in Blue Avocado (2009)
- Does Liability for Negligent Hiring Apply to Volunteers? from Staff Screening Tool Kit
- 8 Steps to Implementing Church Background Checks into Your
Christian Volunteer Programs and Church Volunteer Handbooks from Church Volunteer Daily (must register on the site to get this and other materials - free) (2010) - Federal Law Protects Nonprofit Volunteers, from Don Kramer's Nonprofit Issues
- Is Association Liable for Child’s Injury at Party? from Don Kramer's Nonprofit Issues
- The Last Taboo: 'Would you place a volunteer whose name appears on the register of sex offenders?' article by Adam May in UK's Volunteering magazine, 2004
- Managing Risks from the Wales Council on Voluntary Action.
- The Reasonable Person Standard in Volunteer Management from Planning It Safe
- Reference Checks, from the book Staff Screening Tool Kit
- Risk
Assessment Advice Note, concise information
and a straightforward guide to risk assessment from NIVCA (Northern Ireland). - Risk Management and Volunteer Drivers, a Q&A with Linda Graff on the Energize Book Blog
- Safety in online volunteering programs, from the Virtual Volunteering Project Archives
- Step 2: Screening, from the book No Surprises: Controlling Risks in Volunteer Programs
- Volunteer Code of Ethics from MADD's Policies and Procedures
- The Volunteer Legal At-Risk Test, "NoodleSoup for Nonprofits," May 6, 2003 - Sandra K. Pfau Englund, CAE provides a quick test to provide insight into the types of situations that may give rise to lawsuits.
- Volunteer Rights Inquiry - Interim Report - produced by Volunteering England for the Inquiry (2010).
- Volunteering Is Inherently Risky, from The NonProfit Times "On Volunteers" column by Susan J. Ellis
- When Something Goes Wrong and the Media Calls from Managing Special Event Risks
Free electronic books on this subject
Managing Maine Volunteers (from a Legal Perspective), a 24-pg. PDF prepared by the Maine Commission on Community Serivce (2011), but containing a summary of legal issues relevant to any volunteer-involving organization in any state.
Running the Risk? Risk Management Tool for Volunteer-Involving Organisations - Volunteering Australia has produced this free 52-page guide (2003) to assessing and managing risks for volunteer programs.
Volunteers and the Law - Written for volunteers, staff and board members to learn about how the law applies to volunteer activities and the work they do. By the People's Law School in British Columbia, Canada (2001).
Web sites with useful articles on this topic
Adler & Colvin (formerly Silk, Alder & Colvin)
http://www.adlercolvin.com/
Click to the "Resources" area of this law firm's Web site and you'll see a number of excellent articles on ethics, what corporate scandals may mean to nonprofits, and other legal issues for boards of directors.
Legal Aspects of Volunteering (UK)
PDF
This is one section of the Web site of Sandy Adirondack, trainer/consultant on legal issues and governance in the UK, updating material in the Voluntary Sector Legal Handbook.
Negotiating
the Legal Maze to Volunteer Service
http://www.ed.gov/inits/americareads/resourcekit/Negotiating/title.html
A 1998 "community
service brief" from the Nonprofit Risk Management Center.
Pandora's Box
http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/index.htm
All about preventing child
sexual abuse, with a complete section on US national fingerprint
check legislation and resources.
The Three Top Reasons
Volunteers Get Sued
http://www.nonprofitlaw.com/volrisk/index.shtml
Details (and PowerPoint
slides) of Sandra Pfau Englund's conference presentation on legal
issues related to volunteers, on the nonprofitlaw.com Web site.
Volunteer Legal Handbook
http://www.iciclesoftware.com/VLH7/
Legal handbook for nonprofit corporation volunteers. Offers
examples of "awful situations" and how to prevent them, with advice
on volunteer screening, evaluation, training and insurance.
Volunteer Risk Management Tutorial
http://nonprofitrisk.org/tools/volunteer/no-surprises.shtml
Tutorial offered by the Nonprofit Risk Management Center. This online tool explains how to control risks in a volunteer program to protect the agency, the volunteers, and the clients.
Volunteers Insurance
Service
http://www.cimaworld.com/htdocs/volunteers.cfm
Most established American insurance program for volunteers. Site includes online version of their printed newsletter, VIS® Connections, at http://www.cimaworld.com/visconnections/.
Relevant Hot Topic essays
For
information on this topic specifically relating to the Australasian
region please visit our friends at OzVPM :
http://www.ozvpm.com/resourcebank/resource_insurance.htm and http://www.ozvpm.com/resourcebank/resource_riskmgt.htm
4/22/11
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