Like many other museums we are trying to work on ways to draw more volunteers to help us run our museum.

One of our requirements has always been that our volunteers who work, whether that be as a docent / tour guide, take money, maintenance, etc be a paid member of our organization. I am curious how other museums handle this. Are all of your workers members of your organization or do you allow non-member volunteers to work?

Thanks
Bill

I can't speak for any museum. Speaking as somebody who now and then works with or for museums, it is better to be a member of said organization if you're going to be on their property because you want to be covered for any kind of medical emergency that may occur.

All of our volunteers at our rail facility must be members. That way they’re covered under our volunteer insurance. It’s also in our rule book. I don’t recall if membership strictly applies to all volunteers at the museum location.

Speaking from my experience, generally membership dues are low enough that unless becoming a formal member is a needlessly difficult or long process, there's not a real reason to not be a member if you'll volunteer. In my opinion it's a small ask to satisfy any insurance requirements and liability concerns. It benefits and protects both the volunteer and organization in the event something were to happen. When I was a broke teenaged volunteer, there were numerous occasions where another member or the organization itself paid my dues to make it easier for me to remain an active member.

-Sam

I have many times volunteered with an organization but not become an official member. Sometimes its just for a day or two while I am in the area. If an organization has an online way to pay dues I am more likely to join over one that requires a paper application and a check.

We have memberships at the J&L Narrow Gauge but I have never made it a strict requirement for volunteering. It is highly recommended but I don't track people down who haven't paid their dues and force them to. Its more of an honor system.

Is it really an insurance requirement? Our insurance broker, who also insures some of your operations, has never said to me that volunteers need to be members to be covered by our liability policy.

I’m not the person that handles our insurance but as I think I see it, volunteer insurance isn’t a requirement by the insurer. We do carry it and cover our member volunteers. I think you buy it for X number of volunteers. I’ll ask to see if it covers non-members.

Our general policy is that to work, you have to be a member. But if you’re showing up to help with something specific and you’re donating your time and expertise, I don’t think membership is required.

Common sense applies much of the time. For instance, I was the VFD’s fish fry’s cashier for a few years and didn’t need to be an association member, but husband was a volunteer paramedic and the city “paid” them a dollar a year so workman’s comp would cover them. When I was a volunteer range safety officer, the rifle and pistol club comped my membership as long as I covered x number of range sessions, so the club’s insurance would cover me. If serious injury is possible, sure. If angry customer who got fries instead of coleslaw yells at me, nah. You might want to ask your agent about serendipitous, one-shot volunteers—the ones where you need something done and an expert appears. There might already be a rider on your policy to cover that.

Our insurance person verified that yes, our volunteer insurance covers non-members.

I've seen, heard, and been on just about every side of this debate.

First off, make sure your insurance actually DOES require any and all volunteers to be "members." That is trotted out as standard boilerplate everywhere we go. But I have seen one (non-rail) situation where by way of an actual incident (minor in the grand scheme of things), they found volunteers were actually covered whether members or not--which caused a bit of bad blood with "you mean you made us turn away volunteers because of a rule you made up?"

Second, I'm in full agreement that a volunteer with actual responsibilities and/or representing the organization to the public--in our cases, say, a gift shop or ticket cashier, an engineer, a motorman, a docent, etc.--needs some proverbial "skin in the game," if only to be held accountable if need be. The other obvious mentality at play is doing anything that entails a degree of physical risk--that seems to be the mentality imposed on us by too many commercials for "1-800-YOUR LAWYER" on TV or whatnot.

But let's give you some real-life examples of non-member "volunteering" I have seen and/or been a part of:

*A Scout wanting to restore/repaint a caboose for his Eagle Scout project.
*Scouts/Cadets offering to set up and/or clean up the park after your festival.
*Offering to fully load their camper with hay at half the local price and then drive down to tend to the animal sanctuary farm for a week.
*Loading up a truck with parts salvaged from a parts-donor loco and driving across a couple states to get them to a restoration.
*The retired neighbor across the street that mows the grass around your parking lot and station on his riding mower, just because he likes to--and his wife that plants flowers and does other landscaping a couple times a year.
*The guy who updates your website and/or computers as needed, and doesn't invoice you.
*The guy who drives around with posters/flyers/brochures for your special event, and drops them off every appropriate place he can find for months.
*Showing up before and after the train show/music festival to help set up and take down, for so many years that when he finally applies, they say "Wait--you mean he hasn't been a member all these years? He even had a staff pass and all!" No joking--I saw one guy who actually showed up to help set up right on time for the one festival, not knowing the festival had been permanently canceled by ongoing finance problems from four years of bad weather.....)
*A security technician that arranged for a full complement of rental radio equipment, one of the largest rental contracts that year for the state's largest Motorola contractor, to show up at a major convention where they had foolishly tried to run the show with cheap family-channel "talkabout" radios--and then personally babysat the radio gear with a ham radio friend of his.
*A high school group or college fraternity looking for "service hours" asking what they can do for a place, and ultimately doing a site clean-up, landscaping, or painting a station.
*And, of course, any number of friends drafted into swinging spike mauls, shoveling ballast, or even cooking food for volunteers, at work parties at places like the EBT/Railways To Yesteryear, C&TS, WW&F, you name it.

All nonprofits. All volunteers.
(As I recall, someone paid for the memberships of the two radio guys, and the convention comped them a hotel room from the convention's block, plus volunteers' food privileges--it was a four-day gig, after all.)
You want to force all of those folks to be a dues-paying member first? Let me know how that goes.

Now, there are some people out there that have reasons not to join places with which they do some volunteering. I have one friend who volunteers on the sly because his workplace deems it a "conflict of interest" in some way. I know of two people who had to give up volunteering with full-sized trains because of their employers' rules (yes, they're in the real-train industry). I'm a professional writer, and even as a free-lancer I've had clients/publishers check into whether I was a member (or had involvement or the like) of whatever place or group I was writing about--they want independent writers, not press releases hiding "the rest of the story." (Well, at least the places I've written for.)

I think the thing that irks me the most is that volunteering takes time, energy, and often knowledge and expertise--all commodities that could easily be put to better use by just about anyone. And you want them to pay on top of that?
That smacks of Goodwill or the Salvation Army forcing you to pay to donate items to their thrift stores. (Which, given that about half of stuff donated in many parts of the country is deemed unsaleable and must be trashed, is an idea I expect to see implemented any day now......). Or the American Red Cross charging you to donate blood...........

Thanks for all the feedback.

Reading Mr Mitchell's response maybe for the purposes of this discussion we should narrow the scope to "operating personnel", tour guides, docents, gift shop, ticket agent and such. People who represent and act as staff to the public and operate your facility.

Bill

I have frequently seen hidebound "authoritarians" insist that not even the guy across the street mowing your property or a group of civil service volunteers making an appointment for picking up litter can be "allowed on the property" without becoming members first.

This, to me, reflects either potential fundamental misunderstanding of their insurance coverage, a pathological (and ultimately fatal) fear of outsiders, or someone desperate for memberships and their dollars.

My reflex response when I hear such demands, no matter how much I may like the group/operation or its mission, is to run away from such rigid authoritarianism. (And I have done so, a few times.)

For what it's worth our insurance agent told me our carrier looks more favorably on a policy that requires staff to be a member vs not. Tis why I posed the question.

I am not sure we have "volunteer coverage", but thanks to the feedback here am now looking into adding it if available.

We have used volunteer labor like the scouts for various projects but not manning the ship. As for insurance in those cases, the scouts or whomever either added us to their insurance or provided their own coverage of some sort.

Another organization I am in allows volunteers to help but not in a position that represents the group like Mr. Mitchell mentioned.

This has been an interesting discussion. Thanks again for all the feedback.

TAN: What about non-labor donations from non-members? Do you thank or even acknowledge those strangers?
What if the amount of the donation is greater than your annual membership fee?

If it's a material item we provided a deed of gift and a thank you. Cash they get a receipt and thank you. If they get something or expect to get something in return for their donation then it's no longer considered a donation. That opens a different can of worms.

Following up on my own post we got this from our insurance agent when asking about insurance coverage for non member volunteers. Thought I would share it

"The company has ok’d volunteers to give tours, general grounds maint, and limited cosmetic work."

So anything like working on a restoration project would require someone who wants to volunteer join our organization or if it is a business or contractor offering their services provide their own insurance both if which we have required all along.

Bill