Right now, if you were gone tomorrow, there is a real chance nobody else could legally sign a check, approve a payment, get into the bank, run payroll, or sign the contract a funder is waiting on.
The authority to act, and the access to the accounts and systems, sits with one person, and when that person is gone the organization does not just lose a leader, it loses the power to operate. This guide fixes that. It establishes, in advance and with your board, backup authority so someone can legally act the day after, and it gets the organization, not one individual, in control of every critical account. It is not a power grab and it is not about mistrust; it is protection, so a sudden loss does not become a legal and financial freeze on top of a human one. Use this if the loss of one person would leave nobody able to sign, spend, or reach the money. You do not need it, yet, if authority and access are already shared and documented and your only gap is who would lead; in that case go to Name and Empower Interim Leadership.
You cannot back up authority you have not listed. Go through the acts that keep the organization legal and solvent and ask who can do each: sign checks, approve and release payments, run payroll, sign contracts and grant agreements, bind the organization, file with the state and funders. Mark every one that only one person can do. Do the same for access: bank and payment logins, payroll, the accounting file, donor and email systems, insurance and legal documents, keys and records.
Open the Authority and Access Inventory →Someone besides the key person must be legally able to keep the organization operating, and that authority has to be real, granted properly and, where needed, filed. For each critical authority, decide who the backup is and any limit, for example a second signer for checks above a threshold. Then put the decisions into the forms that make them valid: updated bank signature cards and authorized signers, a written delegation of authority, and any board resolution your bylaws or bank require. Where an instrument must survive the leader's incapacity, not just absence, have an attorney draft it.
If the board will not add a second signer, adopt a delegation of authority, or agree on who should hold it, the organization is one absence away from paralysis and the block is the board itself. Prepare what you can, but you cannot complete this until the board will act, because only the board can grant it. Route the board question to board governance and development, resolve it, and return. This is a route with a clear way back, not a dead end.
Authority is useless if no one can get into the accounts it applies to. For every critical account, make sure at least one other trusted person, or a securely stored organizational record, can reach it. Move passwords into a secure, organization-controlled password manager rather than one person's memory. Confirm the bank and payroll accounts are in the organization's name with more than one authorized administrator. Then record, in one secure place the board can reach, where each account lives and how it is accessed, without leaving passwords in the open.
Open the Access Control Record →Two lines here are not yours to draw alone. Making backup signing authority, a delegation of authority, or any instrument that must survive a leader's incapacity legally valid is work for a nonprofit attorney, and setting up authorized signers and backup administrators on your accounts is work with your bank. Do not rely on a signing arrangement you have not confirmed is legally real, because an invalid authority discovered in a crisis is the same as no authority. This is a boundary, not a detour.
If your key person were gone tomorrow, a named other person and your board could legally sign, pay, and keep the organization operating. Every critical account can be reached by the organization, not just by one person. And the authority and access are written down where the board could find them under pressure.
With authority and access secured, most leaders move to Name and Empower Interim Leadership, so someone is ready not just to sign but to lead. Then Capture What Only the Leader Holds, and finally Write, Adopt, and Maintain the Emergency Plan. If you came in through a crisis and have steadied, the whole-organization check-up is the honest next look once your plan is complete.