Emergency Succession Plan Template
A two page plan for an unplanned absence: who holds authority tomorrow, what they can spend, who is told, and where the passwords are. Fill it in one sitting. Adopt it at the next board meeting.
Succession planning gets deferred because boards picture the large version: a search committee, a consultant, a timeline. That version is real, and it is the wrong place to start.
This is the other document. It answers one question, which is who has authority tomorrow morning if the chief executive cannot be reached, and it can be filled in during a single sitting. Somewhere between a quarter and a third of nonprofits report having any written succession plan at all, and the share holding this short one is the gap worth closing first.
What is in the file
A Word document with seven sections and no narrative. Every section is a table or a prompt, because a plan that has to be read carefully will not be read at all in the situation it exists for.
| Section | What it settles |
|---|---|
| 1. Who acts | First and second successor, named, with the board chair and vice chair |
| 2. What they can decide | Ten decision types against three authority levels, with dollar limits |
| 3. Who is told | Six audiences in order, with a holding statement drafted in advance |
| 4. Access | Twelve systems, who else can get in, and when that was last verified |
| 5. Next 90 days | Commitments that would quietly fail, and who picks each one up |
| 6. When it ends | The review trigger, and whether the interim leader may apply |
| 7. Adoption | Board resolution, minute reference, who holds a copy |
It is free, there is no email wall, and it is a Word file with no restrictions so you can delete what does not apply.
The order is deliberate. Authority comes before communication because an interim leader who has not been told what they can decide will spend the first day asking rather than acting, and access comes before the 90 day list because a commitment you cannot log in to meet is not a commitment you can pick up. Work through it top to bottom and each section supplies what the next one assumes.
Two sections do most of the work
Authority, in numbers. Section 2 asks for dollar figures rather than phrases like reasonable operating expenses. An interim leader who does not know whether they can authorise a $9,000 repair will not authorise it, and the repair waits for a board meeting. Every row is a decision somebody will actually face: single-item spend, payroll, hiring, terminating, signing a lease, talking to the press, accepting a restricted gift, closing a programme.
Access, verified. Section 4 is the one that fails in practice. Organizations write down that the finance lead can reach the bank, and discover in the moment that the login is tied to a phone number belonging to the person who is unavailable. The column that matters is the last one: the date somebody other than the chief executive actually signed in. A claim that access exists is not access.
Naming people, not roles
The most common drafting mistake is naming only a role. Deputy Director is not a successor if that post is vacant half the time, and a single named person may be unreachable for the same reason the chief executive is. The template asks for two, with mobile numbers and personal email addresses, because work email may be exactly what nobody can get into.
Ask both people first. A named successor who learns of the arrangement when it activates is not a plan, and someone who does not want the role will say so more usefully in a quiet conversation than in a crisis.
The awkward section, and why it is in there
Section 6 asks the board to state now whether the interim leader may apply for the permanent job. Boards skip this, and the pattern that follows is predictable. An internal candidate assumes the role is theirs, a search runs that everybody privately knows is decorative, or the candidate is passed over and leaves. The organization then loses two people instead of one.
Writing the answer down costs one uncomfortable conversation. Not writing it down costs a search, a departure, and usually some ill feeling on the board.
The 90 day list, which boards forget
Section 5 asks what is already promised in the next three months and would quietly fail if nobody picked it up. Grant reports with deadlines. Payroll dates. A filing due to the state. An insurance renewal. An event with deposits already paid.
These do not announce themselves. A missed grant report is discovered by the funder, not by you, and the conversation that follows is materially worse than the one where you told them early. Filling this section takes ten minutes with a calendar open and it is the section that most often prevents a real loss.
The second half of it asks which relationships the chief executive holds alone. In most small organizations that is a short and uncomfortable list: two or three major donors, one programme officer, a landlord. Write the names down and say who takes each one, because the alternative is that nobody does and the relationship simply stops.
What this template does not do
It is not a plan for a known departure. When somebody resigns with three months’ notice, you need a different and longer process: a decision about interim arrangements, a search timeline, a view on what the organization needs from the role next rather than what it needed last time, and a deliberate handover of relationships. That work belongs to the board and takes a board cycle.
It is also not a legal document and it does not override your bylaws. If your bylaws already specify who acts when the chief executive cannot, this plan has to match them, and where the two conflict the bylaws win. Check that before adopting, because a plan contradicting your governing documents creates exactly the argument it was meant to prevent.
And it does not cover board officer succession, which is a separate question with its own failure mode. A board chair leaving with no successor is a governance problem this document does not touch.
Getting it adopted
Bring the completed draft to the next board meeting as a single agenda item. Succession planning fails as an agenda item when it is proposed as a project to be scoped, because it goes to a committee and the committee has other work. A two page document ready to adopt takes one discussion.
Adopt it by resolution so it lands in the minutes, and store a copy the board chair can reach without going through the chief executive. A plan living only on the chief executive’s laptop is unavailable in precisely the circumstance it was written for.
Keeping it true
Review it once a year, attached to something already on a fixed schedule such as the audit or the insurance renewal, and rewrite it whenever a named person leaves. An out of date plan is worse than no plan, because it will be followed by people acting quickly on the document in front of them.
There is a test that tells you whether what you have is real. Ask your board chair to produce this document, from their own memory of where it is, without contacting the chief executive. If that takes more than a few minutes, the document exists but the plan does not, and the fix is filing rather than drafting. Then ask whoever is named in section 4 to actually sign in to the bank portal today, rather than confirming that they could.
The longer piece, covering a known departure and the board’s first thirty days, is set out in nonprofit succession planning.
Download this template
Free, no email address, no signup. The full text is on this page as well, so you can read it before you download it.
Questions people ask
What is an emergency succession plan?
A short document naming who holds authority if the chief executive becomes unavailable without notice, through illness, accident or a resignation with no notice period.
It is distinct from planned departure work. A departure plan handles a known exit such as a retirement and is a board project running over weeks. An emergency plan is two pages and can be completed in an afternoon.
Most organizations that say they have no succession plan mean they have not done the long version. The short one is the gap actually worth closing, and there is no defensible reason to be without it.
What should an emergency succession plan include?
Seven things, and it should stay short enough to be read under pressure.
Who acts, naming a first and second successor rather than only a role. What they can decide, with specific dollar limits. Who is told and in what order, with a holding statement drafted in advance.
Where the access is: bank, payroll, accounting, donor database, email administration, website, domain registrar, password manager, insurance, governing documents, grant portals and building keys. What is already committed in the next 90 days. When the arrangement ends and is reviewed. And the adoption block recording the board resolution.
Who should hold a copy of the plan?
The board chair, in a place they can reach without going through the chief executive.
This is the detail that decides whether the document works. A plan stored only on the chief executive's laptop, or in a shared drive whose administrator is the chief executive, is unavailable in exactly the situation it was written for.
Give a copy to both named successors as well, and record in section 7 who holds one. If your board uses a portal, put it there and confirm the chair knows where to look.
How often should we update it?
Once a year, and immediately whenever a named person changes.
Attach the annual review to something already on a fixed schedule, such as the audit or the insurance renewal, so it does not depend on somebody remembering.
An out of date plan is worse than no plan at all. A document naming a deputy who left two years ago will be followed in a crisis by people acting quickly on the page in front of them, and it sends them to someone who cannot help.
Should the board or the executive director write it?
The chief executive usually drafts it, and the board owns and adopts it.
That split reflects who knows what. The chief executive knows where the access sits and what the role does day to day, which is most of the content. The board holds the authority the document distributes, so only the board can adopt it.
Adopt by resolution so it appears in the minutes, and make sure the board holds a copy independently of the person who drafted it.
Do we need to name a specific person, or is a role enough?
Name people. A role alone is not enough.
Deputy Director is not a successor if that post is vacant for half of any given year, which in small organizations it frequently is. Name a first and second successor, with mobile numbers and personal email addresses, since work email may be the system nobody can get into.
Two names rather than one, because a single successor may be unreachable for the same reason the chief executive is.
And ask both of them beforehand. Somebody who does not want the role will say so far more usefully in a quiet conversation than in a crisis.
Does the interim leader get to apply for the permanent job?
That is the board's decision, and the template asks you to write the answer down in advance rather than leave it open.
Boards routinely skip this, and the pattern that follows is predictable. The internal candidate assumes the job is theirs, a search runs that everyone privately knows is decorative, or they are passed over and resign. The organization loses two people instead of one.
Either answer is defensible. Saying nothing is the option that reliably goes wrong, and stating the process costs one uncomfortable conversation rather than a search plus a departure.
How do we know the plan actually works?
Test it, twice a year if you can, and test the two things that fail.
Ask the board chair to produce the document from their own memory of where it is kept, without contacting the chief executive. If that takes more than a few minutes, the document exists but the plan does not, and the fix is filing rather than rewriting.
Then take one row from the access section and have that person genuinely sign in today. Not confirm that they could, but do it. Access tied to a phone number or a personal password manager fails silently, and it fails at the worst moment.
This is reference information, not legal or tax advice. Rules vary by state and change over time. For a decision that carries real consequences, check the current text at irs.gov or your state registry, and talk to a nonprofit attorney or CPA.