BACKGROUND CHECK FOR NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

Nonprofit organizations rely on their volunteers to enable them to deliver on whatever the nonprofit’s mission is for the people they serve. These organizations typically operate on a slim budget, often with little professional staff. Volunteers frequently are the backbone of these organizations, without whom they could not be effective.

Too often nonprofit organizations neglect to perform proper, “best practices” background checks on their volunteers or employees. Some may perform an inadequate non-compliant criminal database check. Others do not even perform this minimal level of nonprofit background checks.

The risk to the nonprofit organization, its donors, employees, volunteers, and customers is great, particularly when the nonprofit organization serves a vulnerable population, such as children, the elderly, individuals with disabilities, or similar types of people. Predatory individuals will seek out nonprofit organizations that serve whatever group they are targeting, under the guise of being a benevolent caring soul, when in fact these predators are preying on the types of people that the nonprofit is trying to help. Reliable can help you protect your organization with background checks for nonprofits services.

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Performing a “best practices” background check on volunteers and employees is critical for all nonprofit organizations. “Best practices” generally means checking for criminal records under all legal names and for all counties that the individual has lived in over the past seven years. If the mission of the nonprofit is truly to be fulfilled, it cannot be accomplished without evaluating the backgrounds and ensuring the integrity of the staff and volunteers that serve the organization and its customers.

When hiring a company to perform the volunteer and/or employee nonprofit background screening, be sure that you use a reliable background screening company and one that is also a reputable consumer reporting agency (CRA). A trustworthy CRA understands the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the federal law that not only regulates employee and volunteer background checks, but imposes very specific disclosure requirements, both upon the CRA and the employer, including nonprofit organizations.

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Nonprofits should always perform background checks. This is particularly important with nonprofits that deal with vulnerable populations, such as children, the elderly, and the disabled. Unfortunately, predators will seek out nonprofits that serve the population that they seek to prey upon, offering to volunteer so that they can exploit the individuals that the nonprofits serve.

Whether a convicted felon can work at a nonprofit will depend upon the specific nonprofit. Additional factors will be the types of crimes that the felon committed, the length of time that has elapsed since the conviction(s) occurred, and the type of position for which the convicted felon is requesting to become a volunteer.