Part 4 of our ongoing Fraud Awareness in the Church series will address Volunteer Training. PSK in cooperation with the National Association of Church Business Administration (NACBA) conducted a survey to determine the extent of fraud awareness in the church environment. We asked churches to respond to this statement:
Our church conducts formal volunteer orientation or training.
Over 60% of the respondents reported having formal volunteer orientation and training. The Church (universal) is arguably the greatest volunteer organization in world history. Without volunteers, there would be no church, or at least not an effective one.
But unfortunately, many churches take their volunteers for granted. One way I’ve seen this played out is the lack of volunteer TRAINING. Many churches send their financial volunteers into action with little, if any, formal preparation. Often, these individuals are pressed into service and simply try to do the best they can with little knowledge of the church’s policies and procedures.
There is a negative byproduct of not training volunteers: While the church’s policies may not change (after all, they should be in writing), procedures certainly will change. With the normal flux of volunteers coming and going procedures will be constantly changing as well.
In short, operational baselines will become blurred. And remember, fraudsters HATE baselines!
