4 BACKGROUND CHECK SEARCHES EVERY NONPROFIT SHOULD BE GETTING

We’ve all heard the stories. An individual with a criminal past, even a recent one, applies to work as a volunteer at a church, a YMCA, a camp, a sports team or other nonprofit organization that works with children or youth. The organization runs a background check that comes back clean. Weeks, months, sometimes even a couple of years goes by and then it happens. Allegations of some sort of misconduct are made, investigations happen, lives and reputations are damaged. When the press asks, all the organization can say is “but we ran a background check and it came back clear.” How does this happen and keep happening? Let’s look at the vital background check searches for nonprofits.

Sure, most of the blame falls on the individual that commits the crime but the organization has some responsibility as well. The challenge for them is, most are non-profit organizations with limited budgets and a need to constantly control costs. When it comes to background screening, that need represents a huge pitfall. The biggest mistake stems from organizations believing they received more in their background check than reality. The typical background checks I see being used costs somewhere between $5 and $10 and provide near instant results. Unfortunately, their background check provider probably told them it’s thorough and it’s “good enough.” The ever-mounting number of news stories certainly paints a different picture:

Babysitter Accused in Child Molestation Case Passed Background Check: YMCA*
No background check on ex-city contractor charged in $43,000 theft*
Camp counselor arrested on child-sex charges passed background check, YMCA says*

So let’s say you are a YMCA that is really serious about doing a good background check on your employees and the volunteer sports coaches for your upcoming summer activities season. What should you look for in a thorough background check? Here are the top 4 searches every nonprofit should be getting in their background check reports:

1. Verify the applicant’s identity with a SSN verification, not just a “validation”. A validation only makes sure the number is valid without matching any of the applicant’s information.
2. County Level Search: This should be performed on all applicants. Most background checks only do a county level search to verify “hits” in a database search.
3. Make sure you include a nationwide Federal search. Convictions at the Federal level do not have records at the county or state level or in any of the “nationwide” databases.
4.  Sex Offender Search: Another big mistake is only doing a database sex offender search of the 50 states and DC. The problem is, the information can be as much as six months out of date, based on how often different registries let you download their information. There are over 50 jurisdictions being missed altogether.

There is more to it than just these searches but it’s amazing how many organizations don’t do any of them and rely on just the database searches. At One Source, we are intentional about providing the same high-quality background check to nonprofit organizations that we do for our corporate clients. That means we don’t cut corners even though the pricing is discounted. Our TotalCheck package is used by 90% of our clients, for-profit and nonprofit alike. This package includes all of the searches I mentioned above and then some. I get a lot of satisfaction when a new nonprofit client thanks me for giving them such an affordable way to improve the safety of their organizations and those they serve.

*The articles do not indicate the types of searches performed, so there is no way to know if anything was missed by not performing a more comprehensive search. Also, there is no way to predict if someone will commit any crimes, despite having an exhaustive and comprehensive background check performed.