Organization Background
Big Brothers Big Sisters is the largest donor and volunteer supported mentoring network in the United
States. For over 100 years they’ve been making meaningful, monitored matches between adult
volunteers and children, ages 6 through 18, in communities across the country. They aim to provide
children facing adversity with strong and enduring professionally supported one-on-one relationships
that change their lives for the better.
Key Highlight
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kentuckiana was using different local vendors for background checks
that provided varied results from state to state. This proved to be a disjointed experience because
it didn’t give them the national view of search results they needed to determine if prospective
volunteers had any criminal history in different states. They sought a more reliable background
screening solution and selected Sterling Volunteers based on their search capabilities and
verification at the national, state, and county level. “Sterling Volunteers is great because we don’t
need to check 3-4 different systems for our background checks anymore,” said Stacey Nance,
Chief Program Officer of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kentuckiana. “It’s a seamless screening process
in a single dashboard and empowers the volunteers to submit their background check themselves.”
Background
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kentuckiana realized they needed to have a single background screening
process they could implement nationwide. “Safety is our number one priority at Big Brothers Big
Sisters,” said Nance. “We knew we needed to find a solution that would allow us to leverage high-quality
background screening across our offices and also ease the screening process for staff and volunteers,”
she said.
Solution
Sterling Volunteers has helped Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kentuckiana streamline their background
screening process across offices, increasing their safety precautions. “We’re able to identify red flags
we may not have caught otherwise and past criminal activity that happened in other states,” said Sarah
Ballard, Program Director at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kentuckiana. ” It’s provided insight we may not
have seen in previous systems.” Sterling Volunteers has also increased the overall ease of Big Brothers
Big Sisters background checks. “It’s very user-friendly and having the ability to send a link directly to
volunteers to complete the process online is a huge improvement,” said Ballard. “The ease of use is
tremendous and it’s allowed us to get rid of the logistical headaches of using paper forms.”
Results
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kentuckiana now has a holistic understanding of their volunteers through
detailed dashboard reporting. “Pulling reports each month is easy, and they’re very clear,” said Nance.
“We’re now rechecking volunteers who have been in the system for three years which we could never
have done with paper forms.”
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