The bus is loading in twenty minutes. You have 47 kids checked in, a counselor on the radio asking about the Hendersons, and someone at the front desk holding a crumpled fax that may or may not be a signed waiver.
This is the summer camp paper waiver experience. And it happens every single season.
Collecting signed waivers for hundreds of campers, many of them minors, is one of the most operationally demanding tasks a camp director faces. Paper forms get lost. Parents forget. Staff spend more time chasing signatures than welcoming families. And when something goes wrong, a missing or incomplete waiver can expose your organization to serious liability.
Digital waivers solve all of it before opening day. Here is how summer camps are using OtterSign to onboard hundreds of campers without a single sheet of paper.
Why Paper Waivers Don’t Work at Camp Scale
A fitness studio might sign 30 waivers a week. A summer camp might need 300 signed before a single session begins. That volume alone makes paper unworkable, but camps face additional layers of complexity that make the problem worse.
Most campers are minors. That means a parent or legal guardian must sign, and the waiver needs to capture the right guardian information, relate correctly to each individual child, and be stored in a way that is retrievable if a question arises mid-session. Paper forms stuffed in a filing cabinet do not meet that standard.
Camps also run multiple sessions. Families often return year after year. Staff turnover is high, and new team members do not always know which families submitted paperwork and which did not. By the time you realize a waiver is missing, the camper is already on site.
The solution is not to hire more administrative staff. It is to move the signature collection process to before arrival, with automated tracking and follow-up built in.
How OtterSign’s Minor Consent Flow Works
OtterSign was built to handle the complexity of minor waivers without making the parent experience complicated.
When a parent receives a waiver link, by email, text, or QR code, they can sign on behalf of up to 10 children in a single session. They enter their information once as the guardian, then add each child individually. Each child receives their own complete, signed waiver record in OtterSign’s system, with the parent’s signature, contact information, and the date of signing attached.
This matters for two reasons. First, it is the right way to handle minor liability documentation because each participant needs their own record, not a shared form. Second, it dramatically reduces friction for families with multiple kids enrolled. A parent signing for three siblings does not fill out three separate forms. They complete one signing session and they are done.
The waiver itself can include age-conditional fields, so questions or disclosures that only apply to certain age groups appear automatically based on the child’s date of birth. Medical information, emergency contacts, photo release consent, and activity-specific disclosures can all be built into the same document using OtterSign’s pre-built summer camp waiver template. No setup from scratch required.
Every completed waiver generates a 30-point audit trail and a Certificate of Authenticity, so your documentation holds up if you ever need it.
The Trip Manifest: Know Exactly Who Hasn’t Signed
The biggest operational advantage OtterSign gives camps is not the signing itself. It is the tracking.
OtterSign’s Trip Manifest feature lets you upload your full camper list before the session begins. The moment you do, you have a live view of exactly which participants have signed and which have not. No spreadsheet. No cross-referencing email confirmations. No guessing.
When you see five families with outstanding waivers, you do not have to email them individually. You send a targeted reminder to all five at once, directly from OtterSign. Parents get a clean email with their child’s name and a direct link to sign. The manifest updates in real time as signatures come in.
For multi-session camps, this means your administrative team can start each session knowing exactly where they stand, days before anyone arrives. For large camps running concurrent programs across multiple sites or age groups, you can organize manifests by session, group, or location and manage them all from one dashboard.
This is the feature that changes how camps think about waiver collection. Instead of chasing signatures reactively on check-in morning, you are closing the loop proactively the week before.
When a Camper Shows Up Without a Waiver
Even with the best pre-arrival process, it happens. A parent forgot. The email went to spam. A last-minute enrollment did not make it into the manifest.
With paper, your options are limited: turn the camper away, hand them a physical form to fill out on the spot, or accept the liability of letting them participate without documentation.
With OtterSign, staff can send a waiver link to the parent’s phone in seconds. The parent receives an SMS with a direct link, signs from their phone, and the completed waiver appears in your dashboard before the camper’s bag is off their back. No printer. No clipboard. No delay.
This on-the-spot SMS capability is especially valuable for day camps and drop-in programs where same-day enrollment is common. It also removes the awkward conversation at the front desk. Instead of turning a family away, you are handing them a solution.
Returning Campers and Multi-Session Efficiency
For camps that run multiple sessions per summer or welcome back returning families year after year, re-collecting waivers manually is a significant administrative burden. OtterSign handles this automatically.
Waiver expiration settings let you define how long a signed waiver remains valid. When a waiver is approaching its expiration date, OtterSign sends the guardian an automatic notification with a link to re-sign. You do not have to track it. Your team does not have to remember who came last summer. The system does it for you.
For seasonal re-enrollment outreach, reminding last year’s families to register for this summer, OtterText lets you build automated text campaigns that go out to your existing signer list. A simple message sent to last year’s families is one of the highest-ROI things a camp can do in the offseason.
What to Include in a Summer Camp Waiver
A well-built camp waiver protects your organization and sets clear expectations with families. At minimum, your waiver should cover the following areas.
Assumption of risk language specific to the activities offered, whether that is swimming, hiking, climbing, sports, or any other programming with inherent physical risk. The more specific your activity list, the stronger your documentation.
Medical information and authorization, including known allergies, current medications, and permission for staff to seek emergency medical treatment if a parent cannot be reached. This section should be required, not optional.
Emergency contact information for at least two contacts, with phone numbers confirmed at the time of signing.
Photo and media release, if your camp uses participant photos for marketing, social media, or communications. This should be a separate, clearly labeled consent field rather than buried in general terms.
Session and date specifics, so the waiver is clearly tied to a defined enrollment period rather than left open-ended.
OtterSign’s pre-built summer camp waiver template includes all of these fields, ready to customize with your camp’s name, branding, specific activities, and any state-specific language your legal counsel recommends. Most camps are collecting signatures the same day they set it up.
Getting Set Up Before the Season Starts
The best time to set up digital waivers is before registration opens, so every family who enrolls signs as part of the enrollment flow. The second best time is right now.
OtterSign takes about 30 minutes to configure for a camp operation. Start with the pre-built summer camp template, customize the fields for your specific programs, and choose how you want to deliver the waiver. Options include an email link embedded in your registration confirmation, an SMS sent directly to the parent’s phone, a QR code printed on your registration materials, or a kiosk at check-in for same-day signing.
Most camps use a combination. Send the waiver link in the registration confirmation email, follow up via SMS for anyone who has not signed two weeks out, and keep a QR code at the check-in table for stragglers.
From there, the Trip Manifest does the rest.
Ready to go paperless before opening day? Start your free trial with 100 credits included.
Want to see the minor consent flow and Trip Manifest in action before you commit? Book a 15-minute demo and we will walk through it with your specific camp setup in mind.
