See also Volunteering and Safeguarding Children & Young People in Editorial Guidelines (separate document)
Volunteering is a popular activity, but there is also a lot of poor practice in the industry. Lonely Planet strongly encourages those considering volunteering to research thoroughly in order to make informed, responsible choices.
In practice, we provide general information on volunteering and point people towards sources of more information, rather than reviewing specific volunteer opportunities. When we cover specific volunteering organisations, we must use language that does not endorse or appear to endorse that organisation, its products, activities or services.
We must make it clear to travellers that Lonely Planet does not vouch for any organisation that we do not work with directly, and that we strongly recommend travellers always investigate a volunteer opportunity themselves to assess the standards and suitability of the project.
In particular, we should never recommend or mention any volunteer opportunities with children unless we are certain that the organisation has adequate policies for child protection. One warning flag would be if an organisation allows adults to volunteer with children without a formal criminal record check. Short-term volunteer opportunities that do not require any specific skills are also suspect. Experts recommend that volunteering should be at least a three-month commitment in order to make a meaningful difference.
We must also avoid recommending that travellers visit orphanages as part of a tour or when passing through town to ‘help out’ as this may offer the opportunity for adults who have not undergone any background checks to have unsupervised contact with minors.