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Rosterfy recently delivered a white paper which talks about the missed checks being carried out on volunteers that work in the Charity Sector and offers suggestions to rectify this.
It is often said that because of who they are and what they do, volunteers are the most trusted in each charity setting. So, a missed check or expired certificate can quickly become a serious problem. Many groups use spreadsheets or systems that are not built for this purpose: and this becomes a problem when someone asks for proof: And there is no quick answer.
Their white paper entitled “The Compliance Gap in Volunteer Management” addresses the critical operational risk in missed checks on volunteers and offers possible solutions.
MVA offers a brief rundown of some key points from Rosterfy’s paper below.
The Core Problem: Why there is a "Gap"
Many volunteer coordinators normally track checks, certificates and forms by hand, and this can create serious risks:
- The Spreadsheet Trap:
General-purpose spreadsheets or adapted corporate Customer Relationship Management systems (CRMs) fail because they weren’t built to handle complex or expiring volunteer credentials. - Cross-Border Complexity: The screening rules are fragmented; in the UK itself, there are THREE separate screening schemes - DBS, PVG, “AccessNI” - with no single credential automatically following a volunteer across the screening borders of these systems.
- Management by Memory:
Manual tracking can work for a small group, but it’s not fit for purpose when an organisation expands, or when it faces a sudden increase in volunteers.
The Possible Solution - 5 Elements of a Defensible Compliance Program
To close this gap, an organisation should have a system built from the ground up. Something that enforces rules automatically, instead of relying on human memory.
Such a secure and defensible framework requires:
- Point-of-Roster Enforcement: The system MUST automatically block a volunteer from claiming a shift, if their background check or training has expired
- Automated Document Collection:
Background checks, parental consent forms, and liability waivers NEED to be put together into the digital onboarding process - Proactive Expiry Alerts: There SHOULD be automated reminders, that alert BOTH the volunteer and the manager before a qualification expires
- An On-Demand Auditing Practice:
The given platform can instantly GENERATE proof-of-compliance reports, so that board members or auditors can review at a moment's notice - Centralised Security: All sensitive data must be kept in ONE secure database to comply with local data privacy laws: This MUST include health and background data.
Real-World Proof (Conclusion)
Some large organisations have already been using this style of model to scale their volunteer forces securely without needing to increase on the admin tasks to do so:
- British Heart Foundation: The Foundation moved away from localised, decentralised checklists to a centralised system, cutting volunteer administrative work roughly in half.
- Expo 2023 Doha: The organisers of this international event were able to safely manage massive numbers of event volunteers by ensuring compliance and accreditation rules were handled digitally.
While an organisation should trust their volunteers, a single background check or certification that lapses can instantly turn an administrative oversight into a major legal and reputational crisis. The core message from the paper is that most organisations believe they are compliant - but they cannot instantly prove it when a regulator, funder, or journalist asks for verification; however, there are steps that can be taken to correct this.
Click here to
download the paper or visit the Rosterfy
website.
If you would like to see coverage of specific funding or grant rounds to help your charity, your project, your community group or enterprise, you can get in touch by
email at
info@mva.org.uk, you can also
contact MVA via the
website.