Efforts to Screen Volunteers Fall Short, Report Says

By Debra E. Blum

Many social-service charities do not do enough to screen volunteers, exposing the people they serve to potential trouble and the organizations themselves to liability, a new report says.

The report, released by the National Center for Victims of Crime, in Washington, was paid for by a grant from ChoicePoint, a Georgia company that conducts background checks.

ChoicePoint issued its own report at the same time, showing that of the 3.7 million screenings it had conducted of potential charity volunteers or employees from 2002 to 2007, more than 189,000 people had at least one criminal conviction. Among the crimes: 651 murder convictions. The ChoicePoint report, called "The Importance of Background Screening for Nonprofits: An Updated Briefing," goes on to demonstrate how the company's own screening services uncover criminal records otherwise overlooked.

Mary Lou Leary, executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime, played down the connection between the two reports. Her organization's report, called "Who's Lending a Hand: A National Survey of Nonprofit Volunteer Screening Practices," is based on a survey conducted by the center with help from the University of Baltimore. It was paid for with a $70,000 grant from ChoicePoint.

The survey did reveal what Ms. Leary called a "troubling lack of adequate screening practices," but much of what charities can do to improve their examination of potential volunteers, she says, does not include hiring a company like ChoicePoint.

She says charities screening volunteers can conduct more in-depth interviews, call references, and do their own background checks with resources available on the Internet or directly through local law-enforcement offices and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

517 Surveyed

The center's survey included 517 social-service groups around the country.

It found that 60 of the organizations, or 12 percent, do not screen volunteers at all — citing, among other reasons, the expense and the potential to offend people.

Among the groups that do screen volunteers, most do so only through interviews, reference calls, and limited criminal checks. Of the groups that conduct a criminal-records check, for example, 30 percent do not also check sex-offender registries and more than half do not also submit names to child-protective services.

More results of the survey by the center and the full report, "Who's Lending a Hand?," are available on the center's Web site. ChoicePoint's report is available on the company's Web site.