For churches & ministries
Church background checks — $5 and identity-verified.
Protect your congregation and your children's ministry with FCRA-compliant background checks for $5, plus biometric identity verification that confirms every volunteer is who they say they are. Built specifically for churches, ministries, and faith-based nonprofits, VolunteerBadge streamlines the church volunteer background check process so you can serve with peace of mind.
Safe ministry starts with knowing who's serving
Children's & nursery
Volunteers care for infants and kids in your most trusted spaces. Screening and identity verification are the baseline of a safe nursery.
Youth & student ministry
Small-group leaders and chaperones work closely with teens, often off-site. Vet every one before the first meeting.
Outreach & missions
Food pantries, home visits, and mission trips put volunteers alongside vulnerable people. Consistent screening protects everyone.
Churches rely on volunteers for nursery, youth group, small groups, missions, and outreach — often working closely with children and vulnerable people. A background check is the baseline of a safe-ministry program, but two things have long made it harder than it should be: cost and certainty. Many providers charge $25–$80 per report, and a name-and-date-of-birth search alone never confirms the person in front of you is actually who they claim to be.
VolunteerBadge fixes both. Every volunteer can complete a full national criminal check — county, state, and federal courts, sex-offender registries across all 50 states, FBI Most Wanted, and OFAC watchlists — for $5. And before they're cleared, you can verify their real identity with a government photo ID and a biometric liveness selfie, matched to the identity on file. It's the difference between screening a name and screening a person.
Everything is FCRA-compliant, with adverse-action notices included, and a free address-history check on every application. Affordable enough to screen every serving volunteer, rigorous enough to protect the people in your care.
Background checks for nonprofitsWhat every $5 church check includes
Everything a ministry needs to vet a volunteer — nothing it doesn't.
- National criminal search — county, state & federal courts
- Sex-offender registries in all 50 states + the national registry
- FBI Most Wanted, OFAC & global watchlists
- Biometric identity verification (photo ID + live selfie)
- Free address-history check on every application
- FCRA adverse-action workflow, handled for you
- Reusable badges + automatic re-screening
- Just $5 per volunteer — no monthly fee, no contract
Invite your volunteer
Send a secure link or post a QR code on your serve page. Volunteers apply from their phone in minutes.
Verify & screen
A government ID + live selfie confirm the real person; the $5 national check runs with their consent.
Cleared to serve
A verified badge lands on your roster — with FCRA adverse action handled if a record ever appears.
Screen every volunteer who serves your church
Free for churches to set up — no contracts, no per-seat fees. Pay just $5 when you run a check.
Create your free account¹ Urban Institute (2017), analysis of 1.7 million employment background checks
Everything included, nothing hidden.
Other platforms charge extra for these. We don't.
We search 650M+ court records across all jurisdictions — county, state, and federal courts, sex offender registries, FBI Most Wanted, OFAC sanctions, and global watchlists. If county records exist but can't be verified under FCRA guidelines, we tell you and refund your fee. No games.
- County, state & federal courts
- Sex offender registry (all 50 states)
- FBI Most Wanted & OFAC
- FCRA-compliant results report
Every volunteer application includes a free address history pull. We verify what they report against what we find. Gaps, inconsistencies, or addresses they "forgot" to mention get flagged before you spend a dime on a criminal check.
- Digital volunteer e-form with FCRA authorization
- Real-time address cross-reference
- Instant flag on discrepancies
- No credits used, ever
Go beyond name-and-date-of-birth. Verify each volunteer with a government-issued photo ID and a biometric liveness selfie, matched against the identity they provide — so you know the human behind the application is who they claim to be.
- Government photo ID capture
- Biometric liveness selfie
- ID-to-applicant identity match
- 500 verifications/month included
Fully documented REST API and webhook support. Plug VolunteerBadge into your CRM, volunteer management software, or AI tool of choice. One API key. 1 credit = 1 background check, however you access us.
- REST API + webhooks
- NLP interface (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini)
- Adverse action notice generation
- In-app, mobile, or API — same price
We verify the human — not just the name on the form.
VolunteerBadge is the only volunteer screening platform that ties a real, verified identity to every application: a biometric face match against a government photo ID, then triangulated against the SSN trace and address history behind the check. A borrowed clean identity can't get through.
Biometric facial match
A live liveness selfie — proof a real person is present, not a photo.
Government photo ID
The selfie is matched face-to-face against their official ID document.
SSN + address triangulation
Identity cross-checked against the SSN trace and address history on the report.
Enterprise-grade verification at a nonprofit price. The same rigor banks use — built into every $5 check.
How it works
Application to cleared volunteer in three steps.
Build the application
Create a digital volunteer application with built-in FCRA authorization. Send a link or embed it on your site.
Verify identity & address
A free address-history check and biometric ID verification confirm the applicant before you spend a dollar.
Run the $5 check
A full national criminal check returns an FCRA-compliant report — with adverse-action notices if needed.
Pricing so simple it's almost embarrassing.
Pay per check for screening. Subscribe to run your whole volunteer program.
Buy credits one at a time. No commitment, no expiry.
- Full national criminal check
- Free address history check
- FCRA-compliant results
- Identity verification
- API & Webhook access
- Adverse action generator
10 credits, 10% off. Credits never expire. Bigger bundles up to 25% off in-app.
- Everything in Pay As You Go
- 10 background check credits
- 10% savings
- Credits roll over, never expire
- Bigger bundles up to 25% off
- Usage dashboard & reporting
Every management feature, included free for unlimited admin users. Only checks cost $5.
- Everything in Pay As You Go
- Volunteer hour tracking
- Grant-ready PDF & CSV reports
- Live compliance roster
- Automated re-screening alerts
- AI grant writing (Claude)
- Dollars for Doers capture
- Unlimited admin seats
Compliance isn't an add-on. It's the default.
Every check follows an FCRA-compliant process, with applicant authorization captured up front and adverse-action notices generated for you when a record is found. The guardrails that protect your volunteers and your organization are included — not sold separately.
Start screening volunteers for $5.
Create a free account in minutes. No contracts, no monthly minimums, no sales call. Just $5 per check when you're ready.
Free guide for church leaders
Let the Children Come: the children’s ministry safety playbook
What the law and your denomination expect, what a real check covers, and a 30-day plan to screen every volunteer — lovingly.
Church background check questions
How much is a church background check?
A full national criminal background check is $5 per volunteer through VolunteerBadge, with free address-history checks and FCRA-compliant adverse-action notices included. There are no monthly fees on the pay-as-you-go plan.
What does the check include?
It searches 650M+ court records across county, state, and federal courts, plus sex-offender registries in all 50 states, FBI Most Wanted, OFAC sanctions, and global watchlists — the coverage a children's and youth ministry needs.
Does it verify the volunteer's identity?
Yes. VolunteerBadge can confirm each volunteer's identity with a government-issued photo ID and a biometric liveness selfie, matched to the identity they provide — so you know the person serving is who they say they are.
Is it appropriate for children's and youth ministry?
Yes. The combination of a national criminal check, all-50-state sex-offender registry search, and biometric identity verification is well suited to safe-ministry and youth-protection programs. Always pair screening with your church's broader child-protection policies.
Which church volunteers need a background check?
The dividing line is unsupervised access to a child or vulnerable adult, not seniority or how long someone has attended. Nursery and children’s ministry, youth small-group leaders, van drivers and retreat chaperones sit at the deepest level. Greeters, ushers and parking teams who are never alone with a child sit at the lightest. The category churches most often miss is short-term help — VBS staff, summer camp counselors and mission-trip adults, who serve intensely with children and are the least likely to have been screened because they were recruited quickly.
Is a background check enough to protect our children’s ministry?
No, and any screening provider who tells you otherwise is overselling. Most people who harm children have no prior conviction, so they would pass any background check. Screening removes the people who are already known, which matters — but it is one layer of five, alongside a written policy, application and references, a two-adult supervision rule, and training with a clear reporting path. If a church can only do one thing, the two-adult rule removes opportunity rather than relying on detection, and it costs nothing.
Does our church insurance require background checks?
Often, yes. Carriers who specialize in churches commonly expect a written child-protection policy and volunteer screening as a condition of sexual misconduct coverage, and some offer premium credits for a documented program. Requirements vary by carrier and policy, so call your agent before designing your program — they will tell you what yours specifically requires, and a documented screening program can cost less than expected once the premium effect is counted.
What do we do if a long-time member’s check comes back with a record?
First establish whether the record is genuinely theirs — name and date-of-birth collisions are common, and that is exactly what the FCRA dispute window exists to catch. If it is theirs, the required order is a pre-adverse action notice with a copy of the report and a summary of rights, a genuine opportunity to dispute, and only then a final decision. Churches generally land in a healthier place when the policy distinguishes between fellowship and role: someone can be fully welcome in the life of the church while still being disqualified from a specific role. Decide which offences are permanently disqualifying in advance, so nobody has to invent it under pressure.
How often should a church re-screen its volunteers?
A background check reflects the day it ran and nothing after it. Annual re-screening is common practice for church volunteers, moving to more frequent cycles for anyone with unsupervised access to children. The practical obstacle is cost — at $30-50 per check, re-screening a 200-person serving team runs $6,000-10,000 a year, which is why many churches screen once at intake and never repeat it.
Keep reading
A ready-to-adopt screening policy for your safe-ministry program.
Screening for mentors and small-group leaders who work closely with kids.
Screening for church rec leagues and youth athletics.
Extra care for the volunteers closest to your youngest members.
State-by-state volunteer screening rules for faith organizations.
Screening guides for every kind of organization.
How the $5, identity-verified check compares.
Confirm the person serving is who they say they are.
Serve with peace of mind
Give your congregation volunteers they can trust. Vet every one for $5 — identity-verified, FCRA-compliant, set up in minutes.