Volunteer Agreement Template | Fair Work Act 2009

A volunteer agreement is a written record of a voluntary arrangement between an organisation and an individual who gives time without expecting payment. It sets out the role, the hours the volunteer is willing to offer, the support the organisation provides, and the mutual expectations around conduct and confidentiality. Its most important legal feature is what it is not: it is deliberately drafted to sit outside a contract of service, so that no employment relationship is created by accident. The document usually states plainly that it is not legally binding as an employment contract and that the volunteer is under no obligation to attend or perform work.

The volunteer handbook is the companion policy layer. Where the agreement is short and personal, the handbook carries the detail: the code of conduct, the complaints pathway, the work health and safety expectations, privacy handling, reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses, and child-safety obligations where relevant. Australian courts distinguish sharply between a genuine contract and an internal policy document that the organisation can change unilaterally, and that distinction matters. Keeping enforceable promises in the agreement and operational guidance in the handbook is exactly how you preserve the volunteer classification. The pairing mirrors the way an employment contract template built around the Fair Work Act separates binding terms from workplace policy, except here the whole point is to stay off the employment side of that line.

Australian law does not define "volunteer" in a single statute, which is precisely why the drafting has to be careful. The Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) governs the national workplace relations system, and its protections attach to a national system employee, meaning someone engaged under a contract of service. The Fair Work Ombudsman sets out the working test for a genuine volunteering arrangement: the person performs work mainly to benefit someone else, neither party intends to create a legally binding employment relationship, the volunteer is under no obligation to attend or work, and the volunteer does not expect to be paid. When those characteristics hold, the volunteer sits outside the Act, and cannot bring an unfair dismissal claim. The danger the Ombudsman flags is drift: the more formalised a volunteer arrangement becomes, with rosters, performance expectations, and allowances that look like wages, the greater the chance a court finds an employment relationship despite the "volunteer" label. Volunteering Australia defines volunteering as time willingly given for the common good and without financial gain, and warns organisations against filling roles that were previously, or should properly be, paid positions.

Being outside the Fair Work Act does not mean being outside the law. Work health and safety legislation applies to volunteers in almost every jurisdiction: under the model Work Health and Safety Act 2011, a person conducting a business or undertaking owes a duty of care to volunteers just as it does to workers, and volunteers carry reciprocal duties to take reasonable care. Anti-discrimination law also reaches volunteers. If your organisation is a registered charity, the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) Governance Standards expect you to manage responsible persons and keep proper records, and a documented volunteer program is part of showing that. For the authoritative statement of these boundaries, the Fair Work Ombudsman's guidance on unpaid work and volunteering is the reference point most tribunals and advisers start from. Where volunteers work with children, a separate and non-negotiable layer applies through each state and territory's Working with Children Check regime.

The clearest trigger is onboarding volunteers into any role with responsibility, risk, or access to sensitive information. A community legal centre taking on intake volunteers, a sporting club recruiting coaches, a food-relief charity rostering warehouse help: each is handling people, data, or physical risk that a handshake cannot manage. The agreement fixes expectations before the first shift, and the handbook gives volunteers something to refer back to when a situation is not obvious.

Funding conditions are the next most common driver. Grant agreements routinely require proof of safeguarding policies, complaints handling, and evidence that the committee approved them, and a volunteer program with signed agreements is exactly the kind of governance artefact funders and insurers want to see. The same paperwork reassures a bank asking about your controls before opening accounts or extending signatory authority. Organisations formalising their structure often pair this with a company constitution aligned with the Corporations Act so that governance sits on one coherent footing.

Two edge cases deserve attention. The first is the volunteer who starts receiving more than reimbursement: regular allowances, honoraria calculated like wages, or benefits tied to hours worked. That is the exact fact pattern that has pushed "volunteers" across the line into employment in Australian tribunals, and it is where a clear agreement, honestly applied, earns its keep. The second is the volunteer moving into child-related work partway through their involvement. A person cleared for back-office tasks who is later asked to mentor minors needs a valid Working with Children Check before that new work begins, not after.

• The role description and scope sets out what the volunteer will actually do, the skills expected, and the reporting line. Vague role descriptions are where employment risk creeps in, so the clause is written to describe contribution rather than obligation, reinforcing that attendance is voluntary and not directed like paid work.
• The non-employment declaration states in plain terms that the arrangement is not a contract of employment, that no wages or entitlements arise, and that the volunteer is free to withdraw at any time. This is the single most important clause for avoiding a Fair Work Act reclassification, and it is drafted to align with the Fair Work Ombudsman's stated characteristics of genuine volunteering.
• The confidentiality clause binds the volunteer to protect personal information, donor details, beneficiary records, and any commercially sensitive material they encounter. For organisations handling health or vulnerable-person data, this connects to obligations under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and is written to survive the end of the volunteer's involvement.
• The insurance and work health and safety terms explain what cover the organisation carries, typically volunteer personal accident and public liability, and set out the volunteer's own duty under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 to follow safety directions and report hazards. This clause matters because volunteers are not automatically covered by workers' compensation.
• The Working with Children Check clause requires the volunteer to hold and maintain a valid clearance for the jurisdiction where they work, to disclose any change in status, and to authorise the organisation to verify it. It is drafted to accommodate the different state and territory names, from the Blue Card in Queensland to the Working with Vulnerable People registration in the ACT and Tasmania.
• The conduct, complaints and termination terms point the volunteer to the handbook's code of conduct and complaints pathway, and confirm that either party may end the arrangement without notice or penalty, which itself reinforces the voluntary character of the relationship.

Australia has no single Working with Children Check, and the volunteer agreement has to bend to whichever regime applies. New South Wales runs the Working with Children Check through the Office of the Children's Guardian, where the check bundles in a National Police Check and is free for volunteers, valid for five years, with continuous monitoring throughout. NSW does not issue a physical card, so the organisation verifies the volunteer's clearance number online, and the handbook should build that verification step into onboarding. NSW child-safe reforms commencing in 2026 have tightened recruitment and staffing obligations, so a current template matters more here than it did a few years ago.

Victoria treats the Working with Children Check and the police check as separate processes, administered through Service Victoria, with identity verification completed in person and processing that can run several weeks. Volunteer checks are free, but the lead time is real, so the agreement should require a valid clearance before child-related duties commence rather than during. During 2025 and 2026 Victoria strengthened its recognition of interstate exclusions and its suspension powers, which is worth reflecting in the handbook's ongoing-suitability language.

Queensland operates the Blue Card system under a "No Card, No Start" principle for regulated child-related work, meaning a volunteer cannot begin until the card is issued. The agreement for a Queensland organisation should make commencement expressly conditional on a current Blue Card, and the handbook should explain the Customer Reference Number and online application path so volunteers are not left guessing.

The Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania use a broader Working with Vulnerable People registration that covers both children and vulnerable adults, so an organisation operating there should frame the clause around vulnerable-person work rather than children alone. Across all jurisdictions, the national reforms endorsed by attorneys-general in late 2025 are moving toward mutual recognition of negative notices, often summarised as "banned in one, banned in all", and continuous checking of criminal-history changes. A volunteer program that already collects clearance details and monitors status is well placed for that shift. Organisations that also engage independent helpers on a paid basis should keep the boundary clean with a separate independent contractor agreement drafted to the Fair Work Act.

You start by choosing your structure and state, because the template adjusts its Working with Children Check language and its work health and safety references to match your jurisdiction. From there you describe the role in the volunteer's own terms of contribution, naming the tasks, the rough time commitment, and the person they report to, while keeping the language away from anything that reads like a directed job. The form then walks you through the non-employment declaration, prompting you to confirm that no wages, allowances beyond genuine reimbursement, or entitlements are on offer, which is what keeps the arrangement clearly voluntary.

Next you set the confidentiality and privacy terms to the sensitivity of the information the volunteer will handle, and you select the insurance cover your organisation actually carries so the agreement does not promise protection that does not exist. If the role touches children or vulnerable people, you switch on the clearance clause and record the check type for your state. The handbook sections then populate from your policy choices on conduct, complaints, and safety. Once the details are in, you download the pack in editable Word and clean PDF, ready for the volunteer to read and sign. Organisations building out a full governance set often complete the picture with templates from the Australian non-profit and charity document library.

The most damaging mistake is letting the arrangement drift toward employment without noticing. Once an organisation starts paying regular allowances that look like wages, imposing fixed rosters with consequences for non-attendance, and managing performance the way it would manage staff, the "volunteer" label stops protecting anyone. Australian tribunals look at substance over description, so a signed agreement only holds up if the day-to-day reality matches it. The fix is discipline: reimburse genuine out-of-pocket costs, keep attendance voluntary, and resist turning goodwill into an unpaid version of a role that should be a paid position, which is something Volunteering Australia's code of practice specifically warns against.

The second cluster of errors sits around child safety and record-keeping. Allowing a volunteer to begin child-related work before a valid clearance is issued is not a paperwork slip, it is a breach in states running "No Card, No Start" rules, and the consequences fall on the organisation. Treating the handbook as a binding contract is another trap: policies you can change unilaterally are generally not contracts of employment, and blurring that helps no one. Finally, organisations forget that work health and safety duties apply to volunteers regardless of the Fair Work Act, so leaving safety obligations out of the handbook exposes both the volunteer and the committee. Getting the surrounding governance right, including how the committee approves policies, sits alongside the same discipline you would apply to a shareholders agreement under the Corporations Act 2001 or any other core governance instrument.