HandsOn Greater Richmond is using and promoting the Verified Volunteers background check program. Photo by Brandy Brubaker.
Local nonprofits are getting a little more advanced in managing hoards of volunteers.
HandsOn Greater Richmond, an organization that matches residents with volunteer opportunities at local charities, is offering a new online background check system that helps organizations modernize the way they screen volunteers.
The system, run by Verified Volunteers, has been in business for less than two years, and HandsOn is one of the first groups offering it to charities in the area. It says the online system can save time, money and a lot of paperwork.
“Most nonprofits do [background checks] manually,” HandsOn Director Vanessa Diamond said. “They have spreadsheets and thousands of pieces of paper.”
HandsOn Greater Richmond has 16,000 volunteers in its database and works with about 7,000 of them each year, Diamond said. It gets volunteer opportunities from about 175 different nonprofits annually. The organization is itself a nonprofit and operates on an annual budget of about $500,000.
Background checks have to be run to look for certain marks on someone’s history that could be seen as a red flag, depending on an organization’s mission.
The Verified Volunteers site allows hopeful volunteers to send their background information to more than one nonprofit at a time.
In HandsOn’s previous background check system, Diamond said a volunteer would have to fill out applications with each nonprofit they wanted to work for. The nonprofit would then send the information to an agency that provides background checks.
“It might take a week or two weeks. This is two days,” Diamond said.
With its new digital system, information can be shared with as many nonprofits a volunteer chooses. Verified Volunteers updates the background check once a month for a year at no additional cost. That means nonprofits don’t have to pay for a new background check for volunteers who are already in Verified Volunteers’ system.
“It allows a volunteer to get a background check and share it with nonprofits all over,” Diamond said. “They’re not just a Boys and Girls Club volunteer or a hospice volunteer, they’re a community volunteer.”
Verified Volunteers also asks volunteers if they would like to pick up the cost of the background check. If they say yes, that’s another savings for the nonprofit they’re working with, Diamond said.
The website offers three different levels of background checks ranging from $13 to 45 a person. Diamond said the service HandsOn previously used cost about $21 a person and was comparable to the most basic Verified Volunteers search.
Peter Paul Development Center, a local nonprofit that works with kids in the East End, said it has used the new system.
Rosemary Jones, director of volunteer services at Peter Paul Development Center, said the organization does background checks on about 100 volunteers a year.
“The old process takes much longer, requires a notary and is out of the hands of the volunteer,” Jones said in an email. “Those of us who work with volunteers have been asking for a system like this to streamline the process and to share, at the volunteer’s request, their information.”
HandsOn Greater Richmond is using and promoting the Verified Volunteers background check program. Photo by Brandy Brubaker.
Local nonprofits are getting a little more advanced in managing hoards of volunteers.
HandsOn Greater Richmond, an organization that matches residents with volunteer opportunities at local charities, is offering a new online background check system that helps organizations modernize the way they screen volunteers.
The system, run by Verified Volunteers, has been in business for less than two years, and HandsOn is one of the first groups offering it to charities in the area. It says the online system can save time, money and a lot of paperwork.
“Most nonprofits do [background checks] manually,” HandsOn Director Vanessa Diamond said. “They have spreadsheets and thousands of pieces of paper.”
HandsOn Greater Richmond has 16,000 volunteers in its database and works with about 7,000 of them each year, Diamond said. It gets volunteer opportunities from about 175 different nonprofits annually. The organization is itself a nonprofit and operates on an annual budget of about $500,000.
Background checks have to be run to look for certain marks on someone’s history that could be seen as a red flag, depending on an organization’s mission.
The Verified Volunteers site allows hopeful volunteers to send their background information to more than one nonprofit at a time.
In HandsOn’s previous background check system, Diamond said a volunteer would have to fill out applications with each nonprofit they wanted to work for. The nonprofit would then send the information to an agency that provides background checks.
“It might take a week or two weeks. This is two days,” Diamond said.
With its new digital system, information can be shared with as many nonprofits a volunteer chooses. Verified Volunteers updates the background check once a month for a year at no additional cost. That means nonprofits don’t have to pay for a new background check for volunteers who are already in Verified Volunteers’ system.
“It allows a volunteer to get a background check and share it with nonprofits all over,” Diamond said. “They’re not just a Boys and Girls Club volunteer or a hospice volunteer, they’re a community volunteer.”
Verified Volunteers also asks volunteers if they would like to pick up the cost of the background check. If they say yes, that’s another savings for the nonprofit they’re working with, Diamond said.
The website offers three different levels of background checks ranging from $13 to 45 a person. Diamond said the service HandsOn previously used cost about $21 a person and was comparable to the most basic Verified Volunteers search.
Peter Paul Development Center, a local nonprofit that works with kids in the East End, said it has used the new system.
Rosemary Jones, director of volunteer services at Peter Paul Development Center, said the organization does background checks on about 100 volunteers a year.
“The old process takes much longer, requires a notary and is out of the hands of the volunteer,” Jones said in an email. “Those of us who work with volunteers have been asking for a system like this to streamline the process and to share, at the volunteer’s request, their information.”