Risk and Liability in Volunteer Programs

Books on this topic

Articles and book excerpts on this topic

• Barriers to Preventing Abuse, from the book Child Abuse Prevention Primer for Your Organization

• Does Liability for Negligent Hiring Apply to Volunteers? from Staff Screening Tool Kit
• 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).
• 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.

• 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

 

Web sites with useful articles on this topic

Adler & Colvin (formerly Silk, Alder & Colvin)

http://www.adlercolvin.com/

Click to the "Articles and Publications" 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)

http://www.sandy-a.co.uk/vslh/35vols.htm

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.

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 programmes. 

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 and the Law

http://www.publiclegaled.bc.ca/snapfiles/Volunteers__the_Law_book.pdf

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).

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/.

 

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

 

                                                                                                                    3/28/08

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