Does your organization require volunteers to sign a volunteer agreement as part of your onboarding process? If not, you may be missing a vital document that protects your organization and your volunteers.

According to Carters, one of the leading firms in Canada in the area of charity and not-for-profit law, a volunteer agreement is a “consensual agreement that sets out the nature of the volunteer relationship and articulates the respective roles and responsibilities of both the volunteer and the organization.”

A volunteer agreement is beneficial is a number of ways, including:

• Educating the volunteers about their rights and responsibilities, which is a guiding principle of the Canadian Code for Volunteer Involvement
• Informing the volunteer about organizational policies and any codes of conduct
• Outlining any limitations or boundaries of their role
• Clearly stating the terms of agreement:volunteers do not receive compensation and that the volunteer engagement does not intend any employment relationship to be created now or in the future.
• Showing credibility to the public, volunteers and donors
• Limiting the organization’s exposure to liability
• Helping reduce conflict with volunteers by clearly outlining and managing expectations from the very beginning of the relationship.

Now that you know why Volunteer Agreements are important, what might they look like? Here’s a sample template that you can use to develop your own Volunteer Agreement. Feel free to amend to suit your purposes. This can be a paper or digital document and signed copies (however the volunteer indicates consent) should be shared with the volunteer for their reference. You may also consider adding your confidentiality statement to this agreement and your media release form so that all the sign-offs are in one place.

Along with this agreement, you should also attach the position description and any policies and procedures that they need to be aware of as part of their work.

Finally, if you have a lawyer on your board of directors, consider asking them to review a draft of this agreement as part of your approval process.

Go to: Volunteer Agreement Template

For more resources on volunteer management, find more articles, webinars, and interviews on our Resource & Learning Centre.