A food bank and a neighborhood association co-host a harvest festival in a city park. The city’s event permit lists only the association. During the festival, a canopy that a food bank volunteer brought from home tips over, injuring a guest. The two organizations divide the work, but they may not share liability equally. Liability […]
A retired registered nurse is sorting donations at a food pantry when a client asks whether to continue taking a prescribed medication. Answering as she would in a clinical setting could take the nurse beyond her assigned volunteer responsibilities. The same concern applies to other licensed professionals, including accountants and attorneys. These volunteers operate within […]
A volunteer visits a homebound older woman with dementia every week. One afternoon, the woman accuses the volunteer of hitting her. Whether the accusation becomes a claim, and whether the volunteer can defend against it, depends on what the organization did before the first visit and what it recorded after each one. Before the first […]
A volunteer pushing an older man’s wheelchair picks up speed. Worried about the pace, the man puts his feet down to stop the chair and falls out. If he sued, he could name the volunteer for pushing too fast and the organization for failing to train volunteers to check in with clients. Whether either claim […]
Volunteers often handle money directly: counting cash boxes at fundraisers, running deposits to the bank, and reconciling totals after a thrift store sale closes. Staff and board members don’t always track financial access closely, and risk plans may skip it entirely in favor of injuries and accidents. Nonprofit liability insurance is often the coverage people […]
A new volunteer walks in without knowing where the exits are, who to report to, or what counts as an emergency. That gap between showing up and knowing what to do is where risk concentrates, and it’s exactly what nonprofit volunteer insurance is designed for. Structure reduces how often something goes wrong. Insurance protects the […]
Volunteers hear things. A client shares a personal detail during a home visit or on the way to a medical appointment. A board member mentions an unreleased decision within earshot of an office volunteer. A donor’s gift amount appears on a spreadsheet that a volunteer helps organize. These situations put a volunteer in possession of […]
