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Mileage Reimbursement for Volunteers?

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Should our nonprofit reimburse volunteers at the business rate because nonprofits are businesses? Or should we reimburse at the rate for charitable organizations?

First of all, whether or not to provide mileage reimbursement to your nonprofit’s volunteers is optional. So is the rate at which you choose to reimburse them. But there is an important caveat!

The IRS reimbursement rate for charitable mileage is currently 14 cents per mile. If a volunteer itemizes deductions and keeps track of miles driven for charitable purposes, that amount can be a deduction. But, if you choose to reimburse the volunteer at a higher rate, the volunteer must report the difference as income.

If you choose to offer mileage reimbursement to your volunteers, it is good practice to adopt a written policy that makes it clear what trips qualify, when and how the reimbursement will be made, and what documentation the volunteer must submit in order to be reimbursed.

Here are some sound resources on this topic:

4 Steps to Volunteer Appreciation and Assistance During a Crisis

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In times of crisis, high volumes of volunteers are needed more than ever. However, due to the uncertain nature of the current pandemic, nonprofits must provide more unique and thoughtful support for volunteers. 

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the demand for volunteers has experienced an interesting shift. According to an article published by NonProfit Pro, Volunteerism in Today’s World, volunteers are in a higher demand than ever to provide COVID-19 relief. 

However, volunteer organizations such as Sterling Volunteers have seen a balance of a decrease in volunteer availability and an increase in new volunteers offering to help. 

Despite the major changes in volunteerism during this time, volunteers remain some of the most vital and valuable organs of any nonprofit. 

Spokes has covered Tools to Engage Volunteers while Sheltering at Home, with ideas including virtual training and virtual engagement activities, but how does this effort extend as we approach the “new normal”? 

We dove a little deeper to give you four ways to assist your organization’s volunteers and ensure that they feel appreciated and fulfilled during a crisis situation, however long that may be. 

1. Acknowledge the importance of your volunteers.

In a time of stress, it is vital to express gratitude to your organization’s volunteers. Know what you ask of them and keep your expectations realistic. Updates will have to be made and keeping your volunteers at a high priority will help your organization to run as smoothly as possible. 

2. Develop a plan.

Creating structure in a time of crisis is crucial to keeping your volunteers involved and up to date on new opportunities and changes implemented in your organization. 

  • Create new protocols and procedures where necessary. Make adjustments to ensure safety, for example implementing social distancing guidelines and hand washing stations for in-person sites. 
  • Plan for shortages and surges of volunteers. This may mean virtual training for new volunteers and remote opportunities for volunteers staying at home. 

3. Keep your volunteers safe and comfortable

Be wise and thoughtful about what you are requesting of your volunteers. 

  • Acknowledge that everyone is different regarding what they are comfortable doing. 
  • Ensure that their safety is your priority and if they don’t feel comfortable with in-person opportunities they are still valued at your organization. 
  • Welcome your new volunteers with virtual training, workshops, gatherings, and a safe working environment. Making a good impression is important as these volunteers may stay with your organization after the crisis. 

4. Embrace new opportunities

Sustaining meaningful contact with volunteers is crucial to solid and supportive relationships. This could mean virtual, remote or in-person engagement with guidelines. 

  • Offer both remote and in-person tasks if possible. According to a VolunteerMatch study, 44% of respondents showed an interest to help virtually and 50% wanted to help in-person but needed ideas. Depending on your organization, suggestions include no contact deliveries, video calls with clients, donation collections or virtual companionship. 
  • Offer meaningful support with remote volunteers. This could mean brainstorming new ways to help, implementing new policies for remote working or virtually checking in. 

For a nonprofit, striving for normalcy in a crisis can be challenging. Ensuring that your volunteers feel supported and appreciated is a huge step in keeping your organization functioning as healthily as possible.

New Rules for Covid-19-related Workers Compensation Claims

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On May 6, 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order N-62-20 extending workers’ compensation benefits to employees who contract COVID-19 while working outside of their homes during California’s stay-at-home order. The order is retroactive to March 19, 2020 and extends through July 5, 2020.

For nonprofits and for-profit businesses alike, this executive order has caused considerable confusion around which Covid-19-related claims will and will not be covered by workers compensation insurance. How can an employer determine if an employee contracted Covid-19 from a customer or employee peer or a family member? If an employee tests positive, how can an employer know when the employee contracted the virus and if the transmission occurred while working outside of the home?

Workers Compensation issues are especially challenging for nonprofits organizations because a large portion of their employee workforce consists of volunteers who may or may not be covered by the organization’s workers compensation policy.

In this article, we’ll try to demystify how workers compensation works, explain how claims effect your organization, and offer resources to help you comply with this newest executive order while keeping your employees and volunteers safe.

What is Workers Compensation?

Workers’ compensation is legally required for any California business – for profit or nonprofit – that has at least one paid employee. Specifically, workers compensation insurance pays for occupational injury and illness that an employee suffers while functioning as an employee and is often a small organization’s single most expensive line of insurance coverage. How much a business pays for its workers compensation depends on its “experience rating”.

Experience rating is an evaluation method in which an organization’s workers compensation policy premium is adjusted up or down to reflect previous loss (or claims) experience. Essentially, the experience rating assumes that the number of claims made against your workers compensation policy is a predictor of future claims. In order for insurance companies to remain financially solvent, insurers must charge sufficient premiums to pay anticipated claims. Therefore, if your organization has a few workers compensation claims and, thus, a higher experience rating, your policy premiums will be increased in anticipation of more claims.

How does will a workers compensation claim affect my nonprofit?

The higher the payroll and the fewer dollars paid out for workers compensation’s claims, the lower the policy’s experience modification – and premiums –  will be. The lower the payroll and the greater dollars paid out for claims, the higher the policy’s experience modification – and premiums – will be.

Generally, workers’ compensation claims can have less of an effect on large organizations than they do on smaller organizations. The reason for this is that larger organizations have higher payrolls and pay proportionately less of that payroll in claims. Larger companies also tend to have a well-enforced safety programs and policies and designated employees who oversee safety and claims management.

Conversely, smaller nonprofits often have far fewer paid employees and much smaller payrolls while relying heavily on volunteers. Therefore, a single workers compensation claim can dramatically impact an organization’s experience modification. Reliance on volunteers adds an added risk as some workers compensation claims protect volunteers and some don’t. When a volunteer is hurt while working in service to the nonprofit and volunteers are not sufficiently covered in the workers compensation policies, lawsuits have been filed. (Example: a volunteer is helping to serve at an outdoor fundraising event and trips and breaks his/her leg.) What many nonprofits fail to understand is that insurers are legally allowed to sue any parties considered at-fault for a claim to recoup expenses – without the permission of the injured party. Meaning that, yes, your volunteers don’t want to sue your nonprofit, but the insurance company that is paying his/her medical bills can do it anyway if the insurance company considers your organization responsible for the accident.

Protecting your nonprofit, employees and volunteers.

  • If your board of directors hasn’t reviewed your organization’s workers compensation policy lately, agenda a review for your next board meeting.

Invite your insurance agent or broker to participate in this discussion. At the very least, designate someone to thoroughly review the policy with your agent or broker prior to the board meeting and prepare a report for board discussion. Does your policy cover volunteers, too? In which capacities? At events? While working in your offices only? While driving their own cars to pick up supplies for your programs? What about volunteers who are fulfilling office roles remotely?

  • Review and change relevant policies to minimize safety risks, as well as potential claims or lawsuits.

Remember to review all policies that protect both employees and volunteers. Will your workers compensation policy cover employees and volunteers who are suddenly working at home? Does your organization have a telecommuting policy in place that requires employees (and volunteers) to have a designate safe workspaces in their home with proper egress in case of fire and no tripping hazards? (Spokes has one to share!) Do you need to limit who is allowed to drive his/her personal vehicles in service to the organization? Do you have clear protocols outlined in your employee handbook about when and how to report an accident that may result in injury?

  • Make sure your organization is up-to-date with all federal, state and local guidelines for Covid-19 safety procedures – and carefully and consistently adhering to them! Here are a few websites with helpful resources and links.
  • When an Covid-19-related workers compensation claim is brought to your attention, use this helpful “Covid Presumption Flowchart” published by the Cal Chamber’s HR Watchdog program and the Law Offices of Mullen & Filippi to determine if the illness or injury falls within the guidelines of Executive Order N-62-20 and how to proceed.

The Covid-19 pandemic is forcing all business to carefully re-examine the way they work. It’s a challenging and sometimes painful process, however, it presents us all with an opportunity to ensure that we are doing our good work responsibly, efficiently and effectively.

As always, please contact Spokes if you have any questions or need additional guidance around the recommendations made in this article. We are also including a couple of helpful links to additional information that may be of interest to you:

Worker’s Compensation Coverage for Volunteers

COVID-19 Wokers’ Comp Claim Presumption Flowchart

Tools to Engage Volunteers While Sheltering-in-place

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The situation due to COVID-19 has led all of us to make a great amount of changes in a very short amount of time. While sheltering-in-place is necessary to keep us all safe, it is proving to make running a nonprofit more challenging than usual. Luckily, there are ways to combat some of the difficulties presented by this new reality and keep your nonprofit functioning while sheltering-in-place.

Because of these difficulties, those working with volunteers may find that they are unable to put in as many hours as they normally do. Not all work can be completed from home and volunteers who deliver direct services are unable to do so due to sheltering and distancing. You might find yourself in need of additional volunteers or new volunteers with different skill sets are needed to navigate the next few months. While in-person training has been suspended until further notice, we’d like to highlight other ways to safely and effectively provide prospective volunteers with necessary information and training. For example, one alternative would be to create a training video to send via email or post on your website. The goal is not to create a professional quality video – just a recording of the presentation you normally make at an in-person training. Another option is using an application like Powtoon to create animated training videos that are fun to both make and watch! 

A second alternative to in-person training is using a video communications platform like Zoom or Google Hangouts to conduct your training virtually. Visit this Business Insider article for a comparison of the two platforms. One of these options will look the most similar to your normal training sessions and will only require that you invite prospective volunteers to the training, providing them with the information they will need to join the meeting. If recruiting new volunteers is too challenging and yet more help in certain areas is needed, consider cross-training current staff and volunteers to perform key duties within your nonprofit. Now is the time to really utilize the diverse skill sets of your wonderful staff and volunteers! This training can be virtual, as discussed above, or can be delivered in-person to employees who are deemed essential workers under the shelter-in-place order.

Though some counties are exploring plans to reopen, there is no set date for lifting the shelter-at-home mandate and no guarantee that life will return to normal anytime soon. Consequently, it’s imperative to innovate and identify new technologies and solutions to sustain meaningful engagement with your organization’s stakeholders, including volunteers, donors, and employees working remotely. This can be done by hosting virtual social gatherings, creating/maintaining an email newsletter, and establishing a strong social media presence for your organization. A small reminder about your organization’s mission, highlighting a shared love for service, and expressing a desire to continue helping your community can go a long way with your organization’s extended community.

Remember, you’re not alone. Spokes is working alongside you to find new ways to safely and virtually provide the management support and resources you need. Please contact us if you would like more specific assistance managing volunteers and sustaining stakeholder relationships remotely.

Sexual Harassment Training: What Do You Need to Know?

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In recent years, the issue of sexual harassment has received more media attention than any other ethics and compliance issue. New mandatory training requirements on preventing sexual harassment in the workplace have also recently been implemented by the State of California. Nonprofit leaders and staff need to make sure they learn what these updated policies are, and that the organization has adequate safeguards and responsive reporting tools in place so employees can feel protected and supported in the workplace.

What Constitutes Sexual Harassment in the Workplace?

Overall, sexual harassment is unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature that is persistent or offensive and interferes with an employee’s job performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment. Sexual harassment is defined by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as:

“unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when, for example: (a) submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual’s employment,

(b) submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting such individual, or (c) such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment.”

The above is a general summary of the more detailed definition; however, the different types and degrees of sexual harassment behaviors need to be understood as well. For instance, sexual harassment can be physical, psychological, or a combination of both. And while any one incident may not be considered harassment on its own, when several incidents occur or the offensive behavior becomes persistent, that can result in sexual harassment. The expanded training requirements for sexual harassment prevention likely will result in a longer list of actions that a nonprofit leader needs to become fully informed about and prepared to execute.

Who Must Understand this Issue?

Everyone in the workplace needs to understand the issue of sexual harassment and other types of discrimination and harassment. The #MeToo Movement has brought much-needed attention to this issue by empowering people suffering from sexual harassment to speak out and report these behaviors. It is crucial that employers recognize their responsibility to protect their employees (as well as the organization’s good standing in the community) by implementing a set of procedures that allows employees to report sexual harassment with confidence and without fear of retribution or recrimination.

Employees should report any concerns about sexual harassment or inappropriate sexual conduct to the Human Resources (HR) director or a supervisor or manager as soon as possible. It is the responsibility of the HR director, manager or supervisor to take immediate and fair action when they have any knowledge of sexual harassment whether or not there has been a written or formal complaint.

After an investigation of a complaint, employees who are found to have violated the sexual harassment policy are subject to appropriate discipline. This can range from the mandatory minimum discipline of a written reprimand to termination of employment. In some cases, the person may also be subject to civil damages or criminal penalties.

Who Needs to Be Trained? 

In prior years, only supervisors in an organization with 50 or more staff were legally required to take sexual harassment training. However, in 2018, California’s legislature passed SB 1343, which expanded the classification of employees who are required to receive training on sexual harassment. By January 1, 2020, employers with at least five employees must provide: (1) at least two hours of sexual harassment prevention training to all supervisory employees, and (2) at least one hour of sexual harassment prevention training to all non-supervisory employees in California within six months of their hire. The training must be provided once every two years.

Employers must provide sexual harassment prevention training to temporary or seasonal employees within 30 calendar days after their hire date or within 100 hours worked if the employee is contracted to work for less than six months. In the case of a temporary employee employed by a temporary services employer (as defined by the California Labor Code) to perform services for clients, the training must be provided by the temporary services employer, not the client.

Employers who provide the required trainings after January 1, 2019, are not required to comply with the January 1, 2020 deadline.

As a nonprofit employer, it’s imperative to understand the significance and scope of this ruling. Now more than ever it’s essential for employers to create a workplace culture where everyone feels safe and respected. Employers need to become aware of contemporary and emerging issues faced by people of all backgrounds, and seek the training necessary for themselves and their staff to prevent, recognize or address any potential sexual harassment issues that may arise.

Spokes Sexual Harassment Training Workshop

Spokes is presenting a Preventing Sexual Harassment and Discrimination workshop on Tuesday, September 17, at the Spokes office in San Luis Obispo. Find out how to prevent abusive conduct, sexual harassment and discrimination with this high-energy and interactive course. Fully compliant with California AB 1825, proof of attendance and a certification of completion will be provided at the end of successful completion of the course. Click here to sign up online.

Additional Resources:

Sexual Harassment in the Nonprofit Workplace

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: Facts about Sexual Harassment 

Sexual Orientation Discrimination: Your Rights

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