In 1990, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service's Missoula Technology and Development Center (MTDC) produced the training video "Supervisor and the Work Crew"(Driessen 1990) for first-line supervisors of field crews. In 1995 and 1996, MTDC produced another training video "Making a Crew" (MTDC Staff 1995 and 1996). This video focused on the workers, not the supervisors. While interviewing Forest Service employees during the production of this program, the project leader noted that numerous changes had occurred in the Forest Service's work culture. This insight led to the white paper, "A Changing Forest Service Work Culture: Training New Leaders" (MTDC Staff 1997). The white paper had two purposes: to present some of the changes taking place in the Forest Service's work culture and to discuss some sociological reflections on the training of Forest Service crew leaders. The paper concluded by recommending that the training program for supervisors of field crews be updated.

A project to update the supervisor training program began in January 2000. The project team found that traditional seasonal crews had become almost extinct in the Forest Service. In their place, new types of workgroups had emerged, including volunteers and hosted program participants. Along with these changes came a new set of safety and liability concerns. Some problems included constant training of volunteers, lack of direct supervision, lack of knowledge of Forest Service safety standards, and inappropriate work expectations. In December 2001, the team presented these finding to the Forest Service's Washington Office of Safety and Occupational Health in the report "Problems Faced by Forest Service Coordinators of Volunteer and Hosted Program Workgroups" (Lamphier and Driessen 2001). The team recommended a guidebook and possibly a video be developed to help train Forest Service employees to coordinate and organize these new kinds of service providers.

The Washington Office of Safety and Occupational and Health decided to sponsor a new project on the safety of volunteers. The Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation also contributed to the sponsorship. The project was assigned to MTDC. This guidebook is the result of that project. The development work for this guidebook included interviews with 49 volunteer coordinators and volunteers and a review of existing volunteer reference material, guidebooks, and Forest Service regulations.