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A board handover is incomplete until the incoming team controls the domain, website, shared inbox, payment platform and member records, and the departing team has lost access it no longer needs. A password document does not prove that. Ask each system who its owner is, who can administer it and whose personal account recovery can take it back. If the answer is one former volunteer's email address, the handover is still open.

The chair hands over a drive folder. The treasurer hands over a spreadsheet. The person who bought the domain graduated in June, but the renewal messages still go to their personal inbox. Nobody intended to leave the next board exposed. The association simply transferred documents without transferring control.

This article is about a board changing, not a developer disappearing. The same website can stay online while the organisation behind it loses the ability to run it.

The new board needs control, not just a folder

Start with the things that can stop the association acting: the domain and its renewal, the website and hosting account, the shared mailbox, the payment platform, the membership register and any publishing or analytics account. For each one, write down the named account holder, current administrators, recovery address and the role that should own it next.

The question is practical: if the outgoing chair's phone disappeared tonight, could the new board reset access and keep the site and payments running? If the answer depends on that chair, the association has not finished the handover.

Figure 1Board handover

Transfer the role. Close the old access.

A document with passwords cannot prove who controls the service now.

Figure 1The association keeps control; the person keeps only their own account.CNIL association guide and access guidance. Operational model, not a finding about a named association.

A shared password keeps the former committee inside

A shared login hides who changed what and leaves an old copy of the password in everyone else's notes. It also makes departures awkward: changing it can lock out the incoming team, while leaving it alone keeps the outgoing team inside. A named administrator account for each person turns departure into a permission change rather than a search for every place the password was copied.

The CNIL's guide for associations recommends an individual identifier for employees and volunteers, access based on real duties, and closing accounts when the person leaves. Its access guidance calls for departure procedures, removal of obsolete rights and regular access reviews. Those are useful operational rules even before anyone talks about a breach.

Role accounts stay, personal permissions leave

The association should keep the role: a shared address such as secretariat@..., the registrar account it owns, and a documented way to recover administrator access. The person should leave with their personal login and their permissions. That distinction lets the mailbox and website survive committee changes without keeping a former volunteer's account active.

Where a service insists on a named personal owner, record who holds that role and what action transfers it. Where it supports several administrators, name a second current board member who can recover access. Do not put recovery codes in a public handover file. Use a secure method agreed by the association.

The incoming team must test access itself

Have the incoming owner sign in with their own account, change a harmless setting and restore it, then confirm that the outgoing account no longer has the old rights. Check renewal and security notices by sending a test to the registered addresses. Do the same on the payment and membership systems, where a stale login reaches real member data.

The CNIL's association guide asks organisations to limit who can access member files. The access review is therefore part of the handover, not an optional technical tidy up. Record the date, the current owner and any exception that still needs to be closed.

A free control sheet works when the association owns its accounts

Make a control sheet with one row per service, a current owner, a backup administrator, the recovery route and a departure action. Have the outgoing and incoming officers walk through it together. Remove old permissions while both sides are available to resolve surprises. Keep the sheet in an association controlled space that the next committee can find.

For a small association with few services, that may be the whole fix. The ceiling comes when the accounts belong to individuals outside the association, the recovery email is gone, or nobody knows which integration relies on a departing person's token. A document cannot transfer control that the organisation never held.

Elevates makes the next handover repeatable

Elevates can inventory the website, domain, mail, payment and member systems with the board; identify which accounts are tied to people; move ownership where the services permit it; set named roles; and test recovery with the incoming officers. The output is a working access map and a repeatable departure checklist, with unresolved provider steps called out plainly.

If the new board can independently sign in, publish, receive renewals and revoke an outgoing officer, the handover is real. If a former volunteer remains the only recovery path, work with Elevates to transfer control before that path disappears.

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