Our levels of volunteering go: drop in volunteer, committed volunteer, core volunteer (can also be a key holder)
People flow through all the levels of volunteering but a key can only be awarded through a vote.
You have to be nominated for a key once you've been a core volunteer for at least 2 months. (like other people have said, this stop people who just want a key from asking for one, since this puts us in an awkward situation of having to deny someone a key)
The person who nominates you take the responsibility of making sure you know and understand the rules.
You have to agree to uphold the safer space agreement and read the volunteer handbook.
Nomination happens at a meeting and then we ask the person to step outside while the rest of the folks at the meeting vote. One can abstain from the vote and the key would still be awarded. But as with all our decisions, one veto or three stand asides = a no go.
We did have one awkward meeting where people debated about the keyholder. The key was for a Women and Trans shift volunteer, and other volunteers took issue because the meeting was the only time they had met the person. And yeah, this caused a lot of heart ache. The group eventually awarded the key. But the volunteers who nominated the person felt deeply hurt by the rest of the group's lack of trust and excitement for more W&T folks getting keys.
As the person doing the nomination, I realize now that I should have emailed the group way more in advanced to find out if there were going to be any issues with the nomination. We could have resolved those before the meeting.
good luck.