What Alaska actually asks of an organization that uses volunteers — screening, reporting, liability, and registration — with every legal claim traced to the source that states it.
Sources verified August 21, 2026Screening rules reach: children, older adults & people with disabilitiesCharitable registration required
Alaska has no law requiring nonprofits in general to screen volunteers. The mandatory checks come from the state Background Check Program (AS 47.05.300–.390; 7 AAC 10.900–.990), run by the Department of Health: in any program licensed, certified or paid by the Department of Health or the Department of Family and Community Services, including child care, foster, residential and elder care, every volunteer 16 or older with regular contact with the people served, and every unsupervised volunteer with access to their records or money, needs a fingerprint-based state and FBI criminal check and a civil-registry check before starting. Convictions carry permanent, 10-, 5- or 3-year barriers, and the $40 application fee is waived for unpaid volunteers of state or 501(c)(3) providers.
Alaska Background Check Program (Alaska Stat. § 47.05.300 through § 47.05.390 and 7 AAC 10.900–10.990) — Requires every entity licensed, certified or paid by the Department of Health or the Department of Family and Community Services to submit each owner, employee, unsupervised volunteer and other person 16 or older with regular contact for a Department of Health background check (fingerprint-based state and FBI criminal check plus civil-registry check) before association; names stay flagged for new arrests, checks last five years with annual verification, and 7 AAC 10.905 sets permanent, 10-year, 5-year and 3-year barriers.
Interested-Person Criminal Record Checks (DPS) (Alaska Stat. §§ 12.62.160(b)(9), (e), 12.62.400(a)(12) and 12.62.900(17)) — Lets an organization that places anyone, paid or unpaid, in a position with supervisory or disciplinary power over a minor or dependent adult request that person’s Alaska criminal record from the Department of Public Safety as an interested person, and add an FBI national check by submitting fingerprints; DPS charges $20 without fingerprints or $35 with them, plus the FBI fee (13 AAC 68.900). The check is optional.
Child Abuse Reporting — School Volunteers and Coaches Named (Alaska Stat. §§ 47.17.020, 47.17.290) — Makes volunteers who interact with children in a public or private school more than four hours a week mandated reporters, along with school athletic coaches, including volunteer coaches who meet hours, training and signed-acknowledgment conditions; reports are due within 24 hours and failure to report is a class A misdemeanor (AS 47.17.068).
Who it reaches: Volunteers 16 or older who regularly serve in a licensed child care facility (five or more non-relative children) and have regular contact with the children, supervised or not: fingerprint-based state and FBI Background Check Program clearance before starting (AS 47.05.310(d); 7 AAC 10.900(b); 7 AAC 57.310–.315); Volunteers 16 or older with regular contact, or access to clients’ records or money, at other entities licensed by the Department of Health or DFCS, including assisted living and host care homes, nursing facilities, hospices, home health agencies, hospitals, residential child care and psychiatric treatment centers, foster homes, child placement agencies and runaway shelters (AS 47.32.010; 7 AAC 10.900(b)); Volunteers 16 or older with regular contact at providers certified or paid by the Department of Health or DFCS to serve clients, including public home care, Medicaid home- and community-based waiver and community mental health case-management providers (AS 47.05.300; 7 AAC 10.900(b)); Foster home household members 16 or older (release and fingerprints with the license application; 7 AAC 67.030); a new volunteer who might have unsupervised contact with a foster child must be reported to the licensing agency (7 AAC 67.170); Staff and volunteers of accredited day camps that use the child care licensing exemption (fingerprint checks to the Background Check Program standard, done by the camp or through the program; 7 AAC 57.015(a)(11), (b)); Optional, not required: school volunteers, field-trip chaperones and unpaid coaches (we found no statute requiring checks; certificated teachers are fingerprinted under AS 14.20.020, and school volunteers working with children more than four hours a week are mandated reporters, AS 47.17.020(a)(9)); Optional, not required: youth sports, church, mentoring, overnight camp and other nonprofit volunteers (we found no statute requiring checks; an organization placing someone over minors or dependent adults may request that person’s Alaska record from DPS as an interested person, AS 12.62.160(b)(9)); Optional, not required: senior center, meal-delivery and other adult-services volunteers at programs not licensed, certified or paid by the Department of Health or DFCS (we found no statute requiring checks).
Check types in use: Fingerprint-based state criminal history check via Alaska DPS; FBI national criminal history check; Barrier crime review under 7 AAC 10.905 (permanent, 10-, 5- and 3-year tiers); Sex offender registry check; Civil history databases, including substantiated child abuse or neglect and vulnerable-adult abuse findings (AS 47.05.330); names then stay flagged in APSIN for new arrests (7 AAC 10.915(e)).
Administered by: Alaska Department of Health — Background Check Program (checks for all Department of Health and DFCS covered providers); Department of Public Safety — Criminal Records and Identification Bureau (state criminal records, fingerprints and FBI submissions).
Typical processing: Not published by the state; the Department of Health can issue a provisional clearance valid for 90 days while fingerprint results are pending (7 AAC 10.920).
It depends on the role. Alaska names occupations rather than requiring universal reporting, so whether a volunteer is a mandated reporter turns on whether the statutory list reaches what they actually do. We have confirmed one relevant detail: Names volunteers who interact with children in a public or private school for more than four hours a week, and public and private school athletic coaches, which includes a volunteer leader or assistant of a sports team who volunteers more than four hours a week; an unpaid volunteer coach must report only after volunteering more than four hours a week for four consecutive weeks or 20 hours a week in a one-month period, completing the state reporter training and signing an acknowledgment form. Domestic violence, sexual assault, crisis and substance-treatment program staff are named only if paid, and child care providers only if they care for children for compensation or reimbursement. Reports go to the Department of Family and Community Services immediately and no later than 24 hours, and also to law enforcement when a sex offense is suspected; telling a supervisor does not satisfy the duty, failure to report is a class A misdemeanor, and any other person may report (AS 47.17.020(a)(2), (6), (7), (9), (b), (g), (j); 47.17.290(1), (4), (7); 47.17.068). Confirm Alaska's current statute before writing your policy — these are amended often.
In every state, territory and the District of Columbia, ANY person is permitted to report suspected abuse even when not required to. A volunteer who is not a mandated reporter can still call, and should.
The safest operating posture, whatever the statute says, is to train every volunteer on what to report and to whom — a policy that only trains "mandated" staff leaves the person most likely to witness something untrained.
Reporting duties are personal. A volunteer who is a mandated reporter cannot discharge the duty by telling a supervisor and stopping there in most states.
Screening and reporting are different obligations. Clearing a background check does not satisfy a reporting duty, and no reporting policy substitutes for screening.
The federal Volunteer Protection Act of 1997 sets a floor: it shields a volunteer of a nonprofit or governmental entity from liability for harm caused by ordinary negligence while acting within the scope of their responsibilities, subject to conditions and exclusions. It is a floor, not a ceiling — a state may extend more protection, and the Act does not shield the ORGANIZATION itself. Alaska's own charitable immunity provisions sit on top of this and need to be read directly.
The federal shield protects the volunteer, not the nonprofit. Organizational liability is a separate question and is what general liability insurance is for.
It does not reach willful or criminal misconduct, gross negligence, reckless misconduct, or a conscious flagrant indifference to the rights or safety of the person harmed.
Harm involving a motor vehicle, vessel, or aircraft is generally carved out where the state requires an operator license or insurance — which is why volunteer drivers are their own category.
State statutes vary more than most boards expect, including in the standard of care they apply and in whether specific volunteer categories get named protection.
Alaska requires a charitable organization to register with the Department of Law before soliciting contributions (AS 45.68.010(a)). Registration costs $40, is filed and paid online, and expires every September 1, so it is renewed each year; the Department of Law charges no late fee, but an organization is not registered until its filing is approved (AS 45.68.010(d); 9 AAC 12.080(a)). Churches and religious organizations exempt from filing a federal Form 990, and organizations holding a Department of Revenue charitable gaming permit, do not register (AS 45.68.120(a)(1), (4)). Paid solicitors register separately for $200 and file a $10,000 surety bond and a copy of each contract; a charity’s own salaried officers, employees and volunteers are not paid solicitors (AS 45.68.010(b), 45.68.020, 45.68.900(4)(B); 9 AAC 12.060, 12.080(b)). Bingo, raffles and pull-tabs need an annual Department of Revenue permit, open to qualified organizations in existence for three years, costing $20 to $100 depending on prior-year gross receipts, plus 1% of net proceeds once gross receipts reach $20,000 (AS 05.15.020, 05.15.690(40)).
An all-volunteer Alaska charity that pays no officer or member and does not intend to raise more than $5,000 in contributions in its fiscal year (government grants excluded), or to receive contributions from more than 10 persons, does not register, but it must keep five years of records proving the exemption and register within 30 days after it actually passes either limit (AS 45.68.120(a)(3), (b), (c)).
Soliciting residents of other states can trigger registration in those states regardless of where you are based — an online donate button reaches all fifty.
Exemptions exist in most registering states (small organizations, religious organizations, membership appeals) but they are specific and usually must be claimed rather than assumed.
Confirm current requirements with your state charity office before relying on this — thresholds and exemptions are amended frequently.
These apply regardless of which state you operate in, and they are the ones most commonly missed by small organizations that assume state registration is the whole picture.
Annual Form 990, 990-EZ, or 990-N. Three consecutive years of non-filing revokes exempt status automatically — this is the single most common way small nonprofits lose their status.
If you run background checks on volunteers, the Fair Credit Reporting Act applies to you as a user of consumer reports: a standalone written disclosure, separate written authorization, and the pre-adverse and adverse action sequence before acting on a result.
Public disclosure: your exemption application and recent 990s must be made available on request.
Employment obligations attach to paid staff regardless of exempt status — payroll tax, worker classification, and wage and hour law all apply.
Incorporation, registered agent, and periodic report requirements differ by state and we have not yet completed primary-source research for Alaska. Rather than summarize someone else's summary, we point you at the office that actually administers it — your Secretary of State (or equivalent) for corporate filings, and your state charity office for charitable registration.
Insurance requirements are set by policy and contract rather than by statute in most states, so there is no single legal answer to publish. What is worth knowing: general liability, directors and officers, and abuse/molestation coverage are distinct, and abuse coverage is frequently excluded by default and priced against your screening and supervision practices. Ask your broker what your policy actually requires of your volunteer screening — it is often stricter than state law.
General information, not legal advice. We are a consumer reporting agency, not a law firm. State law changes — Alaska's requirements may have been amended since we verified these sources on August 21, 2026. Confirm anything you intend to rely on with your state agency, your licensor, your insurer, or your own counsel. If you spot something we have wrong, tell us at support@screenforgelabs.com — we would rather fix it than leave it.
The screening part, handled
Of everything on this page, volunteer background checks are the one we actually do. $5 per volunteer from an FCRA-regulated consumer reporting agency, all 50 state sex-offender registries plus the national registry, with the disclosure, authorization and adverse-action workflow built in — because running checks makes you a user of consumer reports whether you planned for that or not.
