There’s no question that the past year or so has been tough on nonprofits. COVID-19 brought on unique challenges for nonprofits of every size, affecting how we define successful fundraising and programming. But hopefully, your organization’s experience during the pandemic has had some silver lining, pressing you to get creative and rethink your normal way of doing things.

You’ve likely learned how to adapt and improve some of your nonprofit’s everyday processes. You might have embraced hybrid events, started an affiliate program, or even tried direct mail appeals. The pandemic has probably also helped you to take a step back and focus on maintaining healthy relationships with your donors.

Whatever you’ve experimented with will help shape your strategy going forward. Now, your goal should be to incorporate that spirit of adaptability into your regular operations and to keep striving to improve how you’re working to accomplish your mission.

One easy way to improve your operations is to take a look at how strong the legal protections for your nonprofit are and to consider implementing a waiver signing process into your volunteer program and your fundraising events. Waivers created through electronic waiver software are extremely helpful tools when it comes to mitigating legal risks your nonprofit might encounter. (Hint: Re: charity’s guide to getting started with online waiver software can help you select the software that’s best for you.)

In this post, we’ll illustrate why your nonprofit should be using waivers in the post-COVID world. We’ll cover three things you should know:

1. What Waivers Do For You
2. When to Require Waivers
3. How to Seamlessly Integrate Waivers Into Your Operations

As we emerge from the pandemic, waivers are essential for event participants and volunteers to assume any remaining risk of contracting the virus. Additionally, as you also resume live events and programming, you’ll want to make sure your nonprofit is protected from any other situations that might come your way.

1.  What Waivers Do For You

A waiver is a document that, when written with the correct language, sets up a legally binding agreement between your organization and the signer (like an event participant or volunteer).

When a participant signs a waiver, they’re acknowledging that they understand the risks associated with your program that could come from participant negligence or unintentional incidents. When they sign on the dotted line, they’re agreeing to assume that risk. This means that they can’t take legal action against you should any harm come to them while participating in your event or program.

You might read the definition of a waiver above and think, “More paperwork? Waivers aren’t for me.” Well, think again! There are multiple benefits to adding a waiver to your organization’s operations. These benefits include:

• Legal protection for your nonprofit. Your nonprofit is in the business of raising money to help others, not to go to court and get caught up in a messy legal battle. Waivers provide legal protection that can help you avoid lawsuits if something goes wrong while someone is volunteering for you or participating in a fundraising event.
• Becoming more safety-minded. Waivers get you thinking about safety. Once you start thinking through the risks of a certain situation, you can make it safer for everyone involved. For example, if you are planning a tree planting event, preparing a waiver will get you thinking about how you can keep everyone safe. In addition to requiring a signed waiver, you might also decide to provide work gloves, plenty of water, and sunscreen so that you can help minimize the harm that might come to your volunteers. Or you might provide a short training on lifting heavy equipment or trees to help prevent injuries.
• Increased transparency with your supporters. You value your donors and your volunteers, and they support your cause because they trust that you’re working hard to do good for an issue they care about. When your supporters are asked to sign a waiver before participating in something you’re hosting, they’ll see that you care about their wellbeing while they’re working with you, which always helps with supporter retention and loyalty.
• Data to help you drive your mission. According to DonorSearch, the right electronic waiver app can help you collect and manage information about your supporters. With all of your waivers collected in a secure digital database, you can search for specific participants, make notes on participant records, integrate with a reservation or member management system, and transfer contact information to email marketing platforms. 

Waivers are the right tool for you to use to tighten up the legal protections for your organization as you’re optimizing your operations post-pandemic. They’re easy to use (more on that later) and provide a wide range of benefits, so if you haven’t been using waivers, it’s definitely time to re-evaluate your needs. After all, when it comes to protecting yourself and your supporters, can you really be too careful?

2.  When to Require Waivers

In these unprecedented times, a waiver can come in handy for many different situations. The obvious one is for in-person events or volunteer opportunities that might come with a risk of contracting the novel coronavirus. You can certainly require a COVID-19 waiver so that you’re not responsible if one of your supporters gets sick.

Also remember that any supporters who have been engaging in virtual opportunities throughout the pandemic will likely be impressed and more inclined to participate in hybrid or in-person events if a waiver is required, as it will let them know you’re thinking about their safety.

Keep in mind that since COVID-19 is such a new disease, there is little legal precedent surrounding it. If you’re planning on requiring a COVID-19 waiver for any of your programming or events, we recommend consulting with an attorney who can help you craft the waiver with language specific to COVID-19.

Besides times when COVID-19 is a risk factor, there are a number of other situations in which you’ll want to require a waiver. Here’s a list of instances when a waiver is a good idea:

• Fundraising events that involve physical activities, like sporting events or races. If a participant gets injured while running or playing, you’ll want them to take responsibility for their healthcare bills.
• Activities in which participants may be moving heavy objects or using hazardous equipment. Again, you don’t want to be responsible for anyone’s physical injury.
• Events that involve a meal or refreshments not prepared by a professional. For example, if you host a chili cook-off and participants will be sampling each other’s food, there is a risk that someone might get sick if the food is not prepared properly.
• Outdoor events that might be subject to inclement weather or result in property damage. If a supporter participating in a beach clean-up gets injured in a sudden downpour or an attendee at an event leaves at the end of the night only to find their car has been damaged by hail, you want to make sure it won’t turn into a legal problem for you.

The bottom line is this: it’s easy to feel like you need a waiver for everything. And certainly, when you brainstorm fundraising ideas with waivers in mind, it really does look like there’s risk to be found in just about every activity. The important thing to remember is that once you’ve done your part to make an event or a volunteer opportunity safe and have drafted a well-worded waiver, you’ve done all that you can to mitigate the risks for everyone involved.

3.  How to Seamlessly Integrate Waivers Into Your Operations

Once you’re ready to pull the trigger on using waivers in your organization’s regular operations, it’s a good idea to come up with a strategy for collecting and storing them.

You could opt for physical paper waivers, but they’re often a hassle to get signed correctly, annoying to store, and they waste a lot of paper unnecessarily. Your best bet is to opt for digital waivers.

Here’s a few perks that come with digital waivers:

• Participants can sign waivers before an event or volunteer shift. You’ll save time on the day of. Plus, you can make your waiver part of the sign-up process using a widget or site button, so participants can get everything done all at once.
• You can use a kiosk app to set up a signing station at your event’s location. Say goodbye to pens and clipboards and just have your participants sign with a flick of their finger.
• You can gather data quickly and easily. Want to create a contact list from your signed waivers to let volunteers know about future opportunities? Instead of thumbing through files, search your waiver database instead. It saves you time and helps to streamline your outreach efforts.

It’s obvious that digital waivers are a convenient option for making sure your bases are covered when it comes to legal protection. But you’ll also need to pay attention to the wording of your waiver to make sure it really will help to protect your organization.

Make sure your waiver has the following elements so you know you’re capturing the right information:

• Releasor/participant name and contact information
• Releasee/organization name and contact information
• Acknowledgment of potential risk
• Assumption of risk
• Confirmation of review
• Signature

In general, your waiver should include these sections and be written in easy-to-understand language. To be extra prepared, we recommend you check that your waiver adheres to your state’s requirements and that you consult with an attorney and/or insurance company to make sure your protections are solidly in place.

As your nonprofit is strategizing for the post-COVID era, you’ll likely prioritize new strategies and operations that will help your nonprofit run better. One area to focus on is legal protection, and waivers can be a great starting point for ensuring your nonprofit is protected from legal liabilities whenever you’re working with volunteers, program participants, or event attendees.

As you’re getting waivers up and running for your organization, work closely with your team to identify when you’ll want to use waivers and how you can get the most out of your chosen electronic waiver software.

About the Author

Daryl McCarl

Daryl McCarl is the Director of Business Development at Smartwaiver, the leading digital waiver service trusted by thousands of organizations around the world.