Taking over a volunteer group
An inherited group arrives as a set of habits and a password nobody has. The work is not doing more of it; it is writing down what the group is for, what it owes the calendar, and who can get into what — so that the next person is handed something, and so that you are not the single point of failure in the meantime.
Read these in order: what the group is for comes before who does what, and both come before the records. Each step below names the one chapter to open first.
Incorporating, tax status, insurance law, employing anyone and how donations must be handled. Those are for a lawyer or an accountant in your state, not for us. Putting on one large event is the You are hosting something route; this one is about the group that keeps going between them.
The route
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What the group is actually for
Event Planning
The brief is written for one event, but its questions are the ones nobody has asked about the group in years: who it is for, what it is trying to do, and what it would mean for it to have gone well. Answer them on one page before changing anything.
Open atHow to Write an Event Brief: Purpose, Guests, Date, Budget
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The year it actually runs on
Event Planning
Every fixed date the group has, worked backward into when the work starts. An inherited group keeps its calendar in one person’s head, and this is the step that gets it out.
Open atEvent Planning Timeline: How Far in Advance to Plan a Party
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What the group owns
Digital Security
The mailing list, the bank login, the website, the photo account, the shared drive. Most of them are in somebody’s personal email, and often it is somebody who left. Listing them is the first thing, and it is usually alarming.
Open atDigital Security Step 1: List Your Devices and Accounts
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Roles with edges
Event Planning
A job that is written down, bounded and finishable gets volunteers. “Helping out” gets you. This chapter is the center of the route: it is how the work stops running through one person.
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The meeting
Everyday Speaking
Purpose, agenda, roles and time, for a room of people who are there voluntarily and can leave. A meeting that ends when it said it would is the cheapest respect a group can show the people in it.
Open atHow to Run a Meeting: Purpose, Agenda, Roles and Time
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What was decided
Everyday Speaking
Decisions, who is doing what, and by when, written where everyone can see them. In a small group this is not bureaucracy; it is the only memory the group has between meetings.
Open atMeeting Decisions, Minutes and Action Items for Small Groups
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When it is the same two people every time
Conflict Management
Disagreement in a club or on a committee, where nobody can be fired and everyone has to come back next month. Written for exactly this room, and it is usually what makes people quit rather than the work.
Open atConflict at Work and in Groups: Coworkers, Boards, Clubs
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Before the group runs anything public
Event Planning
Parks, tents, raffles and alcohol each have their own paperwork, and an inherited group often has no idea which of them it has been quietly skipping. Find out in a quiet month rather than a week beforehand.
Open atEvent Permits and Insurance: Parks, Tents, Raffles, Alcohol
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The handover you did not get
Digital Security
One file: what the group owns, who can reach it, how a successor gets in, and a date to check that it is still true. Leaving it is the whole job, and it is the thing nobody did for you.
Open atYour Security File, Legacy Contacts and Check-Up Schedule
Everything here is free, needs no account, and can be opened at any chapter. The other routes · all the manuals.