CVA Ethics & Professional Standards in Volunteer Administration 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A volunteer administrator learns that a colleague has misrepresented their CVA credentials on a grant application. The most professionally appropriate response is to:
- Congratulate the colleague on securing the grant
- Confront the colleague privately and encourage them to correct the misrepresentation (Correct answer)
- Ignore it since it benefits the organization's funding
- Immediately publicize the misrepresentation on social media
Correct answer: Confront the colleague privately and encourage them to correct the misrepresentation
Professional ethics require addressing credential misrepresentation directly and privately, encouraging the colleague to correct the record.
Question 2: Informed consent in volunteer administration means volunteers should:
- Be told only the positive aspects of their role to encourage recruitment
- Receive complete and accurate information about their role, risks, and organizational expectations before committing (Correct answer)
- Sign documents without being given time to review them
- Be informed about their duties only after they begin service
Correct answer: Receive complete and accurate information about their role, risks, and organizational expectations before committing
Informed consent requires providing complete, accurate information before volunteers commit so they can make a truly voluntary and knowledgeable decision.
Question 3: When developing policies for volunteer administration, which ethical consideration should be given the highest priority?
- Ensuring policies mirror those of peer organizations exactly
- Ensuring policies are equitable, transparent, and consistently applied to all volunteers (Correct answer)
- Creating policies that minimize volunteer rights to reduce liability
- Developing policies in secret to prevent volunteer feedback
Correct answer: Ensuring policies are equitable, transparent, and consistently applied to all volunteers
Ethical policy development requires that policies be fair, transparent, and consistently applied to all volunteers without favoritism.
Question 4: A volunteer administrator who belongs to a professional association such as ALIVE National is MOST directly fulfilling which ethical obligation?
- Conflict of interest avoidance
- Commitment to professional development and the broader profession (Correct answer)
- Client confidentiality
- Organizational loyalty
Correct answer: Commitment to professional development and the broader profession
Membership in professional associations reflects commitment to ongoing professional development and to advancing the broader field of volunteer administration.
Question 5: The principle of 'do no harm' in volunteer administration most directly applies to:
- Minimizing organizational expenses
- Ensuring that neither volunteers nor clients experience harm through program practices (Correct answer)
- Avoiding any risk in volunteer activities
- Protecting the administrator from personal liability only
Correct answer: Ensuring that neither volunteers nor clients experience harm through program practices
The 'do no harm' principle obligates volunteer administrators to design and manage programs in ways that protect both volunteers and the people they serve.
Question 6: A volunteer asks to see their own personnel file. Under ethical standards for volunteer administration, the administrator should:
- Deny access because volunteer files are organizational property
- Permit access as volunteers generally have the right to review their own records (Correct answer)
- Allow access only to positive records, withholding negative documentation
- Require the volunteer to submit a formal legal request
Correct answer: Permit access as volunteers generally have the right to review their own records
Ethical practice supports transparency by allowing volunteers to review their own records, consistent with respect for individual rights.
Question 7: Which scenario represents a dual relationship that a volunteer administrator should manage carefully for ethical reasons?
- Supervising volunteers who work in different departments
- Supervising a close personal friend who serves as a volunteer in their program (Correct answer)
- Managing volunteers across multiple sites
- Recruiting volunteers through multiple channels
Correct answer: Supervising a close personal friend who serves as a volunteer in their program
A dual relationship — such as being both a personal friend and a supervisor — creates a potential bias that must be carefully managed to maintain fairness.
CVA Ethics & Professional Standards in Volunteer Administration 3
A volunteer administrator learns that a colleague has misrepresented their CVA credentials on a grant application.
The most professionally appropriate response is to: