A club officer handover goes wrong in one familiar way: the website, the domain, the payment account and the member list all sit under the outgoing officer’s personal email, and nobody notices until that person has moved on. A good handover passes on roles, not passwords. The new officer gets their own login to each account, checks that it works, and only then does the old officer’s access come off.
Below is the checklist in the order we’d work through it, then a one-hour agenda for the handover meeting itself. It suits a student club, a hobby group or a small association. For how we build member sites that are meant to outlast each set of officers, see our clubs and organizations page.
Start with an account list
Before anything changes hands, write one list of every account the club depends on. For each one, note what it’s for, the login email, who has access today, when it renews and whose card pays for it. Keep the list in a shared drive the club owns, not in one officer’s personal files.
The usual suspects: the website, the domain registrar, email, the payment processor, the bank, the mailing list tool, social media pages, the shared drive and any event or ticketing tools. Our guide to who owns your website domain has a longer list of accounts a group should hold in its own name, with the access level outsiders should get.
1. Website admin access and roles
Most site builders separate the people who manage the site from the members who sign in to it. Hand over both.
Managing the site. Invite the new officer under their own email with the role they need, wait until they’ve accepted and signed in, then remove the outgoing officer. On Wix, that’s Roles & Permissions, then Invite Collaborators, where you pick a role such as Admin (Co-Owner) or Website Manager. The invitation stays valid for 30 days. Removing someone is in the same place: More Actions next to their name, then Remove.
Owning the site. If the site itself belongs to an officer’s personal account, move it to an account the club controls. Wix calls this transferring a site (Site Actions, then Transfer site), and the new owner has three days to accept. Payment details don’t move with it, and Wix says a Wix Payments account can’t move between Wix accounts at all, which is a good reason to set the site up under the club from day one.
Member roles. If your site has a member database with editors and approvers, move the admin or approver role from the old officer’s member account to the new officer’s. Keep at least two people who can approve, so the queue doesn’t stall. Our guide to member roles and approvals explains how those roles fit together.
Always add first and remove second. A site with no remaining admin is much harder to fix than one with an extra admin for a day.
2. Domain and email in the club’s name
The domain should list the club as its registrant, with the registrar login on a club address rather than a person’s. At handover, check three things: the renewal date, that auto-renew is on, and whose card is on file. A domain that renews on a former treasurer’s personal card is one expired card away from lapsing.
For email, role addresses such as president@ or treasurer@ on the club’s own domain make handovers easy, because the address stays and only the person behind it changes. Whatever setup you use, check the recovery email and recovery phone number on every account. If two-step codes still go to the old officer’s phone, the new officer is locked out the first time a code is needed.
Don’t forget the accounts around the site: Google Search Console, any Google Business Profile and the social pages. Add the new officer, confirm they can get in, then remove the old one.
3. Payment and dues accounts
The payment account should be in the club’s name and pay out to the club’s bank account. Our guide to collecting membership dues online covers how to set that up and keep the records straight.
Some payment processors treat the account owner and the person on file as separate roles. On Stripe, for example:
- The owner can transfer ownership from Team settings to a user with the Administrator or Super Administrator role. If the owner has left, Stripe Support has a verification process instead.
- The company representative, listed under Settings, then Business details, is changed separately. Stripe says to nominate a new one within seven days of removing the old one, or payouts may be paused.
For the bank, ask what it needs to change who can sign for the club’s account, and bring the minutes of the meeting where the new officers were elected in case they ask. If the club has an EIN, the IRS asks for a change of the “responsible party” to be reported on Form 8822-B within 60 days. Whether that applies to your club, and who should be listed, is a question for your accountant, not this checklist.
Hand over the open items too: unpaid invoices, pending refunds, upcoming bills and the dues policy.
4. Member data and privacy
A handover is a good moment to tidy up member data. The FTC’s guide to protecting personal information is written for businesses, but its basics fit a club well: know what personal information you have, keep only what you need, limit access to the people who need it, and remove access promptly when someone leaves a role.
In practice:
- Find every copy of the member list. The website’s database, old spreadsheets, sign-up form responses, the mailing list tool and the payment provider.
- Pick one master copy and say which it is on the account list.
- Ask the outgoing officer to delete personal copies from their laptop, phone and personal drive once the club’s copy is confirmed.
- Check who sees what. Member emails and phone numbers belong behind the login, visible only to the officers who need them.
- Stop collecting what nobody uses. If no one has looked at a field in a year, take it off the sign-up form.
5. Passwords never go by email
The FTC advises businesses not to let people share passwords and not to send them by unencrypted email. Most services make sharing unnecessary, because you can invite each officer under their own login.
For the few accounts that only allow one login, keep the password in a shared vault in a password manager the club controls. CISA says an organization-wide password manager makes good habits easier, and that strong passwords should be paired with multifactor authentication, also called two-step sign-in (CISA’s password advice for organizations). At handover, remove the old officer from the vault and change every shared password they knew.
6. Documents and archives
Gather the records the next officers will need: bylaws, minutes, contracts with venues or vendors, insurance papers, past budgets, filings, event checklists and the club’s photos. Files stay with the account that owns them, so anything in the outgoing officer’s personal drive should be copied or moved into the club’s drive before their access ends.
Add a calendar of the dates that come around every year: the domain renewal, the dues date, filing deadlines, insurance renewals and room bookings. It’s the page the next officer will be glad to have.
The handover meeting: a one-hour agenda
Hold it with both officers at a computer, with the account list open.
- Walk the account list (5 minutes). Add anything missing.
- Sign-in check (15 minutes). The new officer signs in to each account with their own login and confirms their role.
- Recovery details (10 minutes). Move recovery emails, phone numbers and two-step sign-in to the new officer or a club address.
- Money (10 minutes). Balances, pending payments and refunds, upcoming bills, the Stripe owner and representative change, and a date for the bank.
- Member data (10 minutes). Where the master list lives, who can see it, and which personal copies get deleted.
- The calendar (5 minutes). Every recurring deadline for the coming year.
- Remove the old access (5 minutes). Take the outgoing officer off each account, change shared passwords, and write the date on the account list.
A week later, the new officer should sign in to everything alone. Send a normal-sounding message through the club’s contact form from a personal address, then check it reached the new officer, including their spam folder. If the site sends sign-up or form alerts by email or Discord, make sure they now go to the right person.
How we can help
The checklist works on any platform, and most of it is an afternoon’s work once the account list exists. When a club’s old site makes every handover harder, with shared logins, contact details on public pages or an admin nobody can reach, the fix is usually a rebuild. We build membership sites, set up form alerts by email or Discord, and run managed hosting with a daily check that only alerts on real problems. Our clubs and organizations page shows what that looks like. Tell us how your club handles officers and access today through our contact page.