When you think of waivers, chances are you think back to a time when you took part in a physical activity—like kayaking or visiting a trampoline park—and signed a piece of paper before enjoying yourself. While waivers are essential for businesses that hold these kinds of activities, many different kinds of organizations and nonprofits use waivers to protect themselves from being found liable for injuries, damages and other losses.

As a nonprofit, you should be using waivers to protect your organization during fundraising activities as well during volunteering opportunities. By having volunteers complete waivers before performing any volunteer work, you can help individuals understand their responsibilities and expectations as well as minimize the likelihood of your nonprofit from incurring costly lawsuits.

Let’s get started by exploring the reasons why your organization should start using online waivers as a piece of its volunteer management strategy.

Why use online waivers?

Waivers are used by mission-driven organizations for many different reasons. For example, if your organization is organizing a charity race, you should ask each participant to sign a race waiver before running so your organization will have liability coverage in the event of an injury or other damage. Nonprofit organizations can consult with their legal advisors or lawyers to customize their online waivers for their needs. 

Traditional paper waivers can be difficult for organizations to use. Not only is the amount of paper they generate cumbersome for your staff to file and organize, but paper waivers make it difficult to find specific files if an incident does occur. Instead of struggling with this outdated method of procuring waivers from volunteers and participants, consider investing in online waiver software that streamlines the process.

Some of the benefits of using online waivers include:

• Waivers are stored electronically rather than in cluttered physical files.
• Your organization can quickly find files by searching for individuals’ names or birthdays.
• Online waivers are quick and easy to send and receive.
• Organizations can capture an image of the signer at the time of submission for double confirmation. 
• Volunteers can sign digital waivers ahead of time, streamlining the check-in process during the volunteer event and ensuring volunteers understand their role description.

Because the data in these waivers is so accessible and easy to navigate, your organization can leverage it in other ways. For example, you might bolster your nonprofit’s marketing efforts by adding the email addresses volunteers enter on a waiver into your email list, helping you reach them with prompts to get involved in other ways.

What are the key features of online waiver software?

Online waiver software helps make the process of designing and collecting signed waivers simple for nonprofits. According to Smartwaiver, these are some of the most important features to look for when shopping for online waiver software:

• A custom editor: To help your volunteers recognize that the waiver is tied to your organization, make sure you’ll be able to add customized design elements that match your branding, like brand colors, fonts, and logos, to the waiver. Recognizable branding is especially important for contactless waivers volunteers complete online rather than in person at the event.
• Multiple signature boxes: Comprehensive waivers often require initials or signatures for multiple items throughout the document. Look for software that allows you to add these fields wherever they are necessary and doesn’t limit you to just one signature box at the bottom of the page.
• Flagged questions: Flagged questions will send your team an alert if the volunteer chooses a certain answer and prevent them from proceeding with the rest of the waiver. This feature can be applied to questions like “are you 18 years or older?” or “do you release liability for potential damages?” to ensure each waiver is completed properly.
• Video embedding capabilities: Depending on the activity volunteers will complete, you may need or want to have them watch training videos before participating for their safety. You can make this process easier for them by adding the video directly to the waiver.

With these features, the process of creating and using online waivers will go much more smoothly for your organization and volunteers. Additionally, when you make registering and preparing for these opportunities as convenient as possible, you’ll be able to attract and recruit more new volunteers.

How can volunteers use online waivers?

Once you recruit volunteers and organize volunteer opportunities, you’ll need to have them complete waivers before participating. Using online waivers is similar to traditional physical waivers, but they follow a more convenient, streamlined process. This process will follow these steps:

1. Volunteers access the waiver by clicking a link to it on your website, receiving a link in an email, scanning a QR code at your volunteering event, or using a waiver kiosk on the day of.
2. Volunteers read over the legal details included in the waiver and enter details like their name and date of birth.
3. Once volunteers finish reading the waiver, they can draw or type their signature to complete the waiver.
4. Volunteers are free to participate in your volunteer opportunity.
5. Your organization can store and access the waivers, drawing insights from data like when the volunteer checked in, which events drew the most volunteers, and which individuals volunteered the most.

Most waivers your organization asks volunteers to complete will follow this basic process, including rental waivers that protect your property. For some volunteer opportunities, you may need to lend volunteers equipment that your organization owns, and a waiver helps ensure that your property is protected in the event of damage or loss.

About the Authors

Logan Lewis & Daryl McCarl

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