Background Checks - Nonprofit Risk Management Center

Q&A Background Checks
By John Patterson, Senior Program Director, Nonprofit Risk Management Center

The Nonprofit Risk Management Center receives many questions concerning the screening of staff and volunteers using criminal history record checks. Criminal history record checks are important risk management tools but must not replace other risk management strategies designed to lessen the opportunity for abuse of vulnerable service recipients. No background check is perfect and the fact that an applicant appears to have a clean record is not predictive of future behavior.

In this document he answers some of the more frequently asked questions concerning criminal history record checks.