A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Introduction

To help you comply with laws pertaining to the management of volunteers, this Community Service Brief provides guidance regarding some of the most common legal issues that arise in the management of volunteers. Discrimination, workers' compensation, child labor, and taxation receive attention here.

The guidance available from this booklet is limited because the applicability of many of these laws to volunteers is unsettled and because the laws vary across the country. Each state has its own rules and even the interpretation of federal laws varies somewhat depending on court rulings and agency interpretations that have not been standardized nationally.

Because the applicability of many laws to volunteers has not received much attention, this booklet sometimes provides only the principles of law rather than clear rules.

Few laws apply to volunteers per se. However, statutes that do not specifically exclude volunteers or clearly limit their scope to paid workers may apply to all who provide service, whether or not in exchange for compensation.

In addition to alerting you to your responsibilities under these laws, the information here may help you work to change laws that inappropriately interfere with your ability to accept the assistance of volunteers.

More information about laws that limit the use of volunteers is available in Legal Barriers to Volunteer Service. For a free copy, write or fax the Nonprofit Risk Management Center.

At the outset, a brief word about terminology is necessary. As you will see, the applicability of many of the laws depends on whether an individual is considered to be a "volunteer" or an "employee." As a matter of law, the label you give someone is not determinative. An individual you refer to as a "volunteer" may nonetheless be subject to employment laws and standards.

Throughout this booklet, we use "volunteer" to refer to anyone customarily thought of as a volunteer. We use "employee" to refer to someone covered by the employment law at issue, whether or not otherwise considered to be a volunteer. In general, the more a volunteer resembles an employee--compensation, tasks typically performed by employees, subject to same rules as employees--the more likely that laws applying to employees will apply to the volunteer.

While we have attempted to make our work as thorough and as accurate as possible, this booklet cannot provide exhaustive or definitive answers for many of the questions it addresses. The law simply does not permit such certainty. Our goal is to give you as much of the answer as possible under these conditions. You may still need to consult a lawyer for an opinion regarding your specific circumstances. If so, this booklet should be a time-saving tool for your attorney. We have included footnotes specifically for attorneys' use. (If you're not an attorney, you can skip the footnotes.)

If you spot an error or omission in this booklet, or if you have ideas for operating in ways that minimize the negative effects of any law on your program, please notify the authors. Our chief objective is to provide the best possible guidance to the field, and that includes a commitment to update the material in this booklet as needed. Please let us know how we can make these materials more useful for you and please share your knowledge with us so other programs can learn from your experience.

[Anti-Discrimination]