Volunteering is a great way to add to a resume or school application while making a positive impact in your community. Many organizations offer opportunities to help people gain experience in different industries, but volunteering usually requires more than just showing up. Most organizations require a volunteer registration form to ensure they know who they are working with. This helps keep everyone safe, ensures accountability, and allows students or individuals doing community service to prove their contributions. A well-structured volunteer form is essential for effective volunteer management.
Our professionally designed Volunteer Form Templates help you create thorough documents to manage your volunteers effectively. With more than ten forms to choose from, you can find the right template to suit your needs, whether you’re managing a small community project or a large nonprofit. These templates help you find skilled volunteers, ensure safety, and meet legal documentation requirements.
Volunteer Application Form
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Volunteer Form Template
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Volunteer Hours Form
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Volunteer Sign Up Form
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Student Volunteer Form
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Volunteer Agreement Form
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Volunteer Forms for Schools
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Volunteer Registration Form
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Church Volunteer Form
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Volunteer Evaluation Form
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Volunteer Verification Form
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What Is a Volunteer Form?
A volunteer form is a physical or online document organizations or nonprofits use to collect information from individuals interested in volunteering. It includes various sections where volunteer applicants must provide their personal details. This can include contact information, availability, skills, interests, references, and other relevant information like emergency contacts.
While some volunteer activities, like picking up trash or learning a script and path to be a docent, are generally available to anyone, other roles, like offering to do electrical repairs, are necessarily legally limited to individuals with the relevant skills, education, and, when applicable, licenses. A volunteer form aims to gather essential information about volunteers, assess their suitability for specific roles, and facilitate the volunteer process.
Why Is Volunteer Form Important?
A volunteer form is important for many reasons, including safety and recordkeeping. Here are all the reasons you need this critical document if you are working with volunteers:
- Information Gathering: A volunteer form collects important details about potential volunteers. This includes basics like their contact information, availability, and references, as well as more detailed info about their skills and interests. This helps coordinators assess their suitability for various volunteering opportunities.
- Screening and Selection: Some volunteer positions require specific knowledge, skills, and experience. With a thorough volunteer form, organizations can screen and select volunteers based on their qualifications and match them to appropriate roles.
- Volunteer Management: Volunteer forms help organizations manage their volunteers effectively. These documents keep track of who is available and how they can help. Having this information allows for better volunteer placement and coordination.
- Safety and Emergency Preparedness: Personal information collected through the form, including emergency contacts, ensures that organizations can help keep people safe. In case of emergencies or unforeseen circumstances, they can reach out to emergency contacts. This is especially critical when the volunteers are underage.
- Reference Checking: Including a references section lets organizations verify the volunteer’s character and past experiences, providing additional insight into their suitability for the role.
- Legal Compliance: These forms normally include a volunteer agreement section, where applicants agree to adhere to the organization’s policies and guidelines. This helps ensure legal compliance and establishes clear expectations.
Pro tip
Volunteering is a serious commitment. Always provide complete and accurate information when filling out a volunteer form. You will gain valuable experience, but ultimately it’s about what you give back that matters most.
Essential Elements of Volunteer Form
The essential elements of a volunteer form can be easily customized to suit your organization’s specific needs when using a template. Below we’ve provided an outline of the base form, but you can include additional sections in your document as needed.
- Personal Information: This section has fields for the volunteer’s name, contact details, address, and emergency contacts.
- Availability: This part has fields or checkboxes for volunteers to indicate their availability. It should include specific days of the week, preferred hours, or time commitments based on the organization’s volunteer needs.
- Skills and Experience: Allow volunteers to list their relevant skills, qualifications, previous volunteer experiences, and professional background, as this can help you find qualified individuals for more specialized tasks.
- Interests: The interests section of a volunteer form often uses checkboxes or open fields where volunteers can indicate their areas of interest or the specific volunteering roles they are interested in.
- References: It is important to require volunteers to provide the names and contact information of at least two references who can vouch for their character and suitability as a volunteer.
- Additional Information: This optional section lets volunteers provide any additional relevant information, like preferences.
- Volunteer Agreement: At the end, there should be a statement where volunteers acknowledge that they have read the form, completed it truthfully, and agree to abide by the organization’s policies, guidelines, and code of conduct.
- Signature and Date Lines: Provide a space for volunteers to sign and date the form. This shows their consent and commitment.
Pro tip
Do your research before filling out a volunteer application form. This will allow you to choose the right opportunity and tailor your responses to that organization’s specific goals and needs. Doing this helps you stand out by highlighting why you are the best candidate for that particular role.
FAQs
You can add a section in the volunteer form to learn about a volunteer’s health conditions or disabilities. However, it must be handled carefully and always in compliance with relevant privacy laws and regulations. You may only ask if the information about health conditions or disabilities is necessary to ensure the safety and well-being of the volunteer during volunteering activities. To do this, include a voluntary, confidential section where volunteers can disclose such information. It is extremely important to clearly communicate the purpose of collecting this information, assure confidentiality, and handle any document containing protected medical data responsibly.
A volunteer form should include a section specifically for volunteers under the age of 18 if you allow them. This section includes additional information about parental consent, contact details, and any necessary legal considerations. Including this section ensures that organizations have the necessary information and consent for volunteers who are minors. It also allows them to implement appropriate safeguards and protocols for their involvement.
There are no skills or qualifications needed to become a volunteer in a general sense, but it depends on where you want to volunteer. Individual organizations often have requirements specific to their volunteer activities. For example, some volunteer experiences exclude minors. Organizations like Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) are highly specialized and may require candidates to have unique skills, qualifications, and experience for some or all roles. In other cases, certain opportunities like Greenpeace only accept volunteer applicants who have or are willing to learn specific skill sets.
Key Points
Volunteer forms are essential in the recruitment and selection process of volunteers. These documents allow organizations to gather relevant information, assess qualifications, and match individuals with suitable roles. By including thorough, well-thought-out questions, organizations can effectively manage their volunteer programs. Good volunteer forms help create positive experiences for volunteers and make a meaningful impact in their communities. Using a professionally designed, customizable Volunteer Form Template can save you time, minimize errors and omissions, and ensure you have all the important information you need to assess, assign, and record your volunteers.