Free · Certificate included

Succession Planning for Volunteer Leaders

Build a bench so your program thrives long after you step away.

28 min Intermediate 7 modules Pass 80%

For: Volunteers leading other volunteers

What you’ll learn

Identify and develop future volunteer leaders before you need them
Diagnose and break key-person dependency and founder’s syndrome
Document a role so a successor can step in without re-learning everything
Transfer knowledge and hand off leadership without disrupting the program

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Course outline

1
Why a volunteer role needs a successor
You built something. The volunteers you lead show up, the program runs, and a lot of that is because you hold it together. That is exactly why succession planning…
5 min Quiz Interactive
2
Key-person dependency & founder’s syndrome
The risk you are managing has a name: key-person dependency.
5 min Quiz Interactive
3
Spotting and developing your successor
You can’t hand off to a person who doesn’t exist yet.
5 min Quiz Interactive
4
Documenting the role
Half of succession is people; the other half is writing things down.
5 min Quiz Interactive
5
The emergency plan: when there’s no warning
Not every transition comes with three months’ notice.
4 min Quiz Interactive
6
Knowledge transfer & the overlap period
A binder transfers the explicit knowledge.
5 min Quiz Interactive
7
The graceful handoff — and letting go
A graceful handoff is one where the program barely notices the change — because the work was distributed, documented, and transferred long before the date.
4 min Quiz Interactive

Sources & further reading

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