NoCo company pairs with volunteer-recruitment firm

FORT COLLINS — A Fort Collins-based company is joining forces with a volunteer-recruitment company to help nonprofit organizations and others that use volunteers make certain that their volunteers don’t pose risks to individuals and organizations.

Verified Volunteers, the Fort Collins company, has paired with VolunteerMatch, the  largest web-based volunteer-recruitment company. VolunteerMatch is based in San Francisco. Together, they plan to help organizations both recruit volunteers for specific purposes and assure that backgrounds are checked.

“VolunteerMatch is all about making it easier for good people and good causes to work together to make a difference,” said Greg Baldwin, CEO, VolunteerMatch. “That is why we are partnering with Verified Volunteers to help create more safe spaces to volunteer.”

SPONSORED CONTENT

Business Cares: April 2024

In Colorado, 1 in 3 women, 1 in 3 men and 1 in 2 transgender individuals will experience an attempted or completed sexual assault in their lifetime. During April, we recognize Sexual Assault Awareness Month with the hopes of increasing conversations about this very important issue.

The two organizations will provide high-quality background screening and access to a library of resources designed to establish screening best practices and improve volunteer management.  The services are available currently to VolunteerMatch’s more than 120,000 government agencies, hospices, hospitals, nonprofits and schools, the organizations said.

“Our shared commitment to helping so many wonderful organizations successfully carry out their good work really makes this the perfect partnership. By joining forces, we aspire to have an even greater impact,” says Katie Zwetzig, executive director, Verified Volunteers. “For instance, we know through our own research that background check quality is increasingly important for nonprofits, yet the appropriate level of risk mitigation is still not being met by current screening programs. By joining forces with VolunteerMatch, we can provide education and guidance to greater numbers of organizations on how to address these critical gaps.”

Verified Volunteers’ screening platform, with self-service features, sharing capabilities and management tools, enables the VolunteerMatch community to:

Ease administrative burdens. Volunteers order and control their own background checks using a secure, online platform.

Give their volunteers the option to pay — or ask for an optional contribution. With budgets stretched thin, this option can preserve valuable funds by allowing (or requiring) volunteers to pay for all or part of their screening.

Receive complimentary monthly updates. While other background checks are “one and done,” Verified Volunteers provides the added security of monitoring volunteers for new criminal records during the first year.

Accept background checks from previously vetted volunteers. Within the Verified Volunteers network, volunteers who have previously been vetted with one organization can store and share their existing background check with other organizations at no additional cost. In addition, if a volunteer background check is shared with another organization, the organization that initiated the original check can earn rebates.