The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) has addressed an important question that often arises in church workplaces: When may a church employee volunteer additional time for the church without that time becoming compensable work under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)?
In Opinion Letter FLSA2026-12, WHD reviewed a specific case involving exempt employees of a nonprofit that breeds and trains service dogs who want to volunteer outside normal work hours as puppy caretakers in their homes.
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The department explains that nonprofit employees—whether exempt or nonexempt—may volunteer for their employer if the services are:
- Offered freely,
- without direct or implied coercion,
- without an expectation of compensation, and
- are not the same or similar to the work they are employed to perform.
An employee cannot simply “volunteer” to perform essentially the same duties they normally perform for pay. Whether duties are sufficiently different depends on the facts and circumstances, including how closely the volunteer activities relate to the employee’s regular responsibilities.
“Put another way, a nonprofit employee cannot be both a paid employee and a non-paid volunteer while performing the same type of work for the same employer,” the department said.
The analysis
Applying this standard, WHD concluded that veterinarians and directors could potentially volunteer as puppy caretakers because their regular duties were assumed to differ substantially from routine canine care and socialization.
Trainers, however, generally could not volunteer for such work because training and caring for dogs substantially overlap with their paid duties.
WHD referenced five past cases put before the department to help further illustrate the way the analysis works:
- A hospital office employee could volunteer to sit with patients during off-duty hours;
- A school district bus driver could volunteer as a school basketball coach;
- A secretary for a nonprofit serving at-risk youth could chaperone a trip because the secretary’s primary employment duties did not involve supervising children.
- A school district bus driver could not volunteer to drive a school’s basketball team to away games because it overlapped with his primary employed duties.
- Detention officers could not volunteer as reserve peace officers for the same public employer because duties between the roles overlapped.
For properly exempt employees, WHD clarified that improperly characterized “volunteer” work may not require additional compensation if their primary duties remain exempt work and they continue to satisfy all exemption requirements.
Caution: The department nevertheless cautions nonprofits that misclassifying “volunteer” time can affect the analysis of an employee’s status as an exempt employee and can create liability for back wages, overtime, liquidated damages, and attorneys’ fees for employees that are classified as nonexempt.
What this means for churches
Churches often face situations in which exempt and nonexempt employees want to volunteer for church events, ministries, and activities.
The WHD guidance suggests room for such volunteering.
However, churches should use the WHD’s analysis before approving any volunteering.
When an employee desires to volunteer, the churches should:
- Review all employee job descriptions to ensure they are detailed and accurate and such duties do not overlap with the requested volunteer areas;
- Review wage classifications for ministerial exception, exempt, and nonexempt employees to ensure they are correct;
- Outline specific duties a volunteer role entails and then review how those may overlap with an employee’s primary paid duties;
- Verify the employee freely wishes to volunteer, without appearance of coercion; and
- Verify the employee does not expect compensation for the volunteer work.
Tip: Special consideration should be given when an employee will be volunteering in roles supervised by the same person as the employee’s regular supervisor as this may indicate the duties are more “work” duties than “volunteer” duties.
We used AI to help generate this content, which Frank Sommerville, Attorney and CPA, and Elaine Sommerville, CPA, peer-reviewed.