3 steps to successful knowledge transfer for succession in voluntary work

Anyone who volunteers for an organisation knows the problem: there is a lot to do and far too few volunteers who want to lend a hand and provide support. The organisation is often dependent on a few people who do a lot and are more or less responsible for everything. The following situation is also classic in club life: A single person in the association takes on a great many tasks and feels like they are involved in several functions, but no one is able to transparently understand which tasks the person is actually doing all of them. This harbours potential dangers. If such a committed member wants to leave the voluntary work, problems are inevitable. How can the person be replaced? What did the departing member actually do? What expertise do we need and how do we keep the knowledge in our organisation? In short: What happens now?

In every club, there is that one person who has been there for decades and works diligently everywhere. Nobody knows exactly in how many areas or departments the volunteer takes on tasks. Above all, however, nobody knows exactly how the person works and how often certain tasks are carried out. Here are a few examples of what volunteers often do on their own and independently:

• Sports facility management and the utilisation of halls and pitches.
• Agreements and general communication with the city or municipality.
• Organisation of own sporting events.
• Organisation and team registrations for the championship.
• Sponsorship for jerseys, equipment or team trips.

Volunteers often store the necessary documents at home. Many also complete the tasks based on experience and use their personal or professional network to solve problems. To outsiders, this situation seems very chaotic and it's hard to know where to start with the process. But what initially looks like an insurmountable task can be an opportunity to rethink volunteering. As hard as the resignation of a committed member is, it is always an opportunity to modernise outdated structures and optimise the areas affected. In the following sections, we will show you in three steps how you can organise a successful transfer of knowledge in your association.

If the committed club member announces that they are ending their voluntary work, you shouldn't immediately be blindsided. Keep calm and analyse the current situation. When analysing the situation, you should ask yourself four key questions and answer them as precisely as possible before the volunteer leaves:

1. What exactly is the timetable until the handover?
2. What specific tasks did the volunteer have?
3. Are these tasks documented in the organisation?
4. Which department is involved? Or were cross-departmental tasks possibly processed?

Normally, a committed member does not stop for no reason. In most cases, family or work commitments no longer fit. However, sometimes people also leave voluntary work due to age or for health reasons. If there is a separation and the reason is not interpersonal, the volunteer will almost certainly tell you when they are leaving. After all, the volunteer also has an interest in ensuring that things continue positively for the organisation after they leave. Ideally, the member's departure should be 1-2 years in advance so that there is enough time to create a sensible transition. In reality, however, it is usually only a matter of weeks or a few months. During this transition phase, you should accompany the departing volunteer as often as possible, learn more and ask lots of questions. It is also best to attend meetings or events where the volunteer is in charge. Also ask whether the volunteer is available for follow-up questions. This is often the case so that any ambiguities can be resolved at a later date.

It is important to subdivide the task areas into specific task types:

1. Regular (weekly) tasks such as membership applications, training materials, member registrations and cancellations.
2. Seasonal tasks such as club events (tournaments or Christmas parties), registration processes with the association (championships), communication with the local authority, training schedules and court utilisation.
3. Rare but important tasks such as the annual financial statements, dealing with breaches of the articles of association or documents to be submitted to the tax office (to obtain non-profit status).

Ask the dedicated member to write down their regular, seasonal and infrequent tasks so that you have a rough overview. Experience has shown that the infrequent tasks are often forgotten. However, if you accompany the volunteer over a longer period of time and are available to answer any questions after they have left, you can also hand over and manage the tasks that would otherwise result in an information gap.

First try to find out whether there is any documentation at all about the volunteer's activities. The documentation includes everything that is written down in any form. This includes

• Handwritten notes
• E-mail correspondence
• Documents in folders
• Word or Excel files

As soon as you have gained a rough overview of the available documents, you should ask yourself the following questions and answer them as best you can:

• How complex is the task?
• How well is the task documented? In other words, is it clear to outsiders what needs to be done and who the right contact persons are?
• How important is the task?
• How often does the task need to be completed?

In small associations, there are often just a few committed people, but they accumulate a lot of tasks and take on several functions at the same time. In larger organisations, the tasks are more specific, so that they are often spread over several shoulders. Basically, you can assume the following two principles:

1. The more departments there are, the more specific knowledge is required and the higher the probability that knowledge is duplicated within the organisation.
2. The more people involved, the lower the loss of knowledge.

The final step in the analysis is to determine which departments are affected when the member leaves. If the financial officer resigns, ALL departments of the organisation are affected. As a rule, this applies as soon as board members give up their honorary position because they maintain contacts with sponsors, donors and politicians and generally allow the club to benefit from their personal network. If, on the other hand, a dedicated coach resigns, this usually only affects a single team. In this case, you should only check whether there is documentation of training sessions if the coach was a very good professional.

When concretising the schedule, the aim is to identify by when which tasks that were filtered out in the analysis of the current situation in the previous step are to be completed. And these tasks need to be organised in a chronological order according to their frequency and relevance. We would like to illustrate this with two examples:

• Membership application: The membership application is a common and mostly standardised task. The task is not complex and is usually well documented. It is important to process the membership application, but the association is not at a standstill if it takes a few days longer or if rookie mistakes are made during processing.
• Annual financial statements: The annual financial statements are a complex task and of enormous importance for the continued existence of the organisation. Documentation is often poor in many associations because documents are not centralised and digital, but are kept in folders at the volunteer's home or at work. However, the task is only completed once a year, so there is enough time to acquire the knowledge.

There is always knowledge that is not documented. Accordingly, you should ideally agree with the person who is leaving that any unanswered questions can also be clarified afterwards. Also attend the most important meetings and be present at important event days to get a better feel for the entire task. This will allow you to categorise the seemingly insurmountable challenges into several small packages and spread the load over several shoulders.

Once the succession of a very committed volunteer has been mastered without too much knowledge being lost, you will certainly want to avoid such a situation in the future. The most important preventative measure is to digitise as many processes as possible and store them in a central location. In this way, all members can follow the processes passively - in the event of a member leaving, the volunteers who are still active do not have to teach themselves every step of the process again, but can take over some tasks on a transitional basis. This also makes it much easier to train potential successors.In addition to working transparently, you should also have regular discussions with the departing volunteer. Ask the member as many questions as possible, accompany the person to important meetings and events and make a note of the most important aspects. With the notes you have made and the answers from personal conversations, you can already start documenting the transition to make it easier. Ask the people involved in your organisation to proactively assess the status quo and make a list of all activities. Pro tip: Everyone writes down their weekly "working hours". This will give you a good indicator of whose commitment might be jeopardised because it involves too many hours. Last but not least, it is of central importance for the well-being of the organisation to spread the workload across as many shoulders as possible. If a committed member stops working, the loss of knowledge is limited. The members who are still active can take on tasks themselves or transfer them more easily to subsequent volunteers.