How to Screen Volunteers

Every charity and nonprofit organization needs to screen volunteer applicants. The narrow margins between success and failure in the nonprofit field increase the importance of a good volunteer workforce. Your volunteers need to be placed through multiple screens to increase the power of your community organizing efforts.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Copies of volunteer applications
• Criminal background form

1. Produce a standard application form that simplifies the screening process for new volunteers. This application should feature spots for volunteer objectives, references and contact information. An electronic version of your application cuts down on your printing and mailing costs.

2. Speak with potential volunteers via multiple media to screen out inexperienced or disqualified applicants. Your volunteer pool can be refined with a sophisticated email interview as well as a one-on-one and group interview.

3. Require every volunteer to submit a full list of references as a simple screening method. You need to spend time asking questions of every reference on an application as a check against fraudulent resumes.

4. Request unofficial high school and college transcripts from volunteers to fill in leadership and mid-level positions. Academic transcripts provide insight into the course work taken by a volunteer in preparation for professional and volunteer opportunities.

5. Hand out criminal background consent forms from your state to prospective volunteers. You can use CASAnet's list of resources for state background checks to weed out unsavory elements from your volunteer corps (see Resources below).

6. Locate volunteers with the motivation and energy to help your organization by asking for long-term objectives from applicants. This screening method will help you find college students and professionals who share your commitment to a single mission.

7. Finish off your screening process by asking an experienced volunteer to speak one on one with an applicant. A veteran of door-to-door work can speak about the realities of volunteerism in a way that tests the mettle of an applicant.

8. Test the commitment of a volunteer by asking him to shadow a group of volunteers in the first week. This shadowing process will screen out qualified applicants who cannot live up to their potential in the non-profit world.

Tips & Warnings

• Show prospective volunteers a sample schedule of daily activities to screen out casual applicants. New volunteers in your organization need to be able to jump into active roles immediately to ease pressure on staff and experienced volunteers. Ask your staff members to revise this schedule constantly to reflect changes in operations.

Resources

• CASAnet resources for state criminal background checks