A Hidden Risk for Organizations
Membership organizations—along with many nonprofits and small institutions—often rely on volunteers or short-term staff to manage their websites. That approach can work for a while. But over time, we’ve seen many sites fail not because of bad intentions or lack of intelligence, but because small, reasonable decisions quietly compound.
One of the most common—and least discussed—examples looks like this:
An organization entrusts its website, domain, hosting, and platform access to a single party. Sometimes that party is a volunteer. Sometimes an entry-level or transient staff member. Sometimes it’s an outside designer or small agency. Often it’s simply “the one who knows websites.”
The decision feels responsible, efficient, and human.
And then that person—or company—leaves.
What walks out the door with them isn’t just knowledge. It’s access to the keys.
This Isn’t a Technical Problem
When organizations lose access to their website, domain, or hosting, the story is often told as a technical failure. A plugin broke something. A theme caused issues. A platform update went wrong.
In reality, those things are symptoms.
The underlying issue is governance—not technology. And—hey—seriously—this is where things go wrong, despite everyone’s good intentions and hard work.
Access was granted to an individual or vendor rather than managed as an organizational asset. Credentials lived in inboxes, browsers, personal password managers, agency systems, or undocumented handoffs. Domain renewals were tied to personal or third-party email addresses. Hosting accounts were created “temporarily” and never revisited.
None of this is reckless. It’s common practice. It’s also fragile.
Why This Happens So Often in Membership Organizations
Associations and nonprofits are uniquely vulnerable to this pattern.
Leadership rotates. Boards change. Staff turns over. Volunteers step in to help, often from different locations and time zones. Budgets are scrutinized. External help is brought in to move things forward quickly.
In that environment, concentrating access with whoever is doing the work—internally or externally—feels practical. It avoids friction. It keeps momentum. It signals trust.
But it also creates a single point of failure—one that often isn’t discovered until something breaks or someone disappears.
When Good Intentions Undo Serious Work
We’ve seen this happen to organizations of all sizes, including large, well-funded, compliance-driven initiatives.
In one case, a sophisticated, six-figure website took more than a year to design and build. It included accessibility considerations, complex content workflows, and systems designed to support a humanitarian mission.
Later, in an effort to reduce ongoing costs, responsibility for the site was shifted. Access was handed off. Over time, changes were made. Tools were added. Core structures were altered. Eventually, the site stopped working.
Then the person responsible for it was gone.
No one remaining could log in. No one could access hosting. The domain couldn’t be repointed. The site—and the resources it supported—were effectively unreachable.
This wasn’t a failure of effort or intent. It was a failure of continuity.
And it’s not rare.
Ownership vs. Custodianship
The quiet distinction most organizations miss is the difference between ownership and custodianship.
Websites, domains, and digital platforms are long-lived organizational assets. They outlast staff roles, board terms, vendors, contracts, and initiatives. Treating them as personal or vendor-held responsibilities—rather than shared, governed systems—invites loss.
Custodians come and go. Ownership must remain with the organization.
That requires structure. Not complexity—just clarity.
What Stability Actually Looks Like
Stability doesn’t mean locking everything down or distrusting capable people or partners. It means designing systems that assume change.
That includes:
- Organizational control of domain registration and renewals
- Centralized access management that survives staff or vendor transitions
- Clear documentation of who owns what—and why
- Thoughtful limits on what can be changed, and by whom
- Continuity plans that don’t depend on any single person or firm
These aren’t technical best practices. They’re stewardship practices.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
Membership organizations exist to serve communities, professions, causes, and missions that extend far beyond any one individual or engagement. When digital systems fail, the cost isn’t just financial—it’s trust, momentum, and often years of accumulated work.
The tragedy is that most of these failures are preventable. They don’t require better tools. They require better framing.
Not “Who’s handling the website?”
But “Who still has access when this relationship changes?”
A Final Thought
Organizations don’t lose their websites overnight. They lose them gradually—through reasonable decisions made without a long view.
The solution isn’t control for control’s sake. It’s responsibility designed to endure.
Because missions shouldn’t disappear when the keys do.
→ Read more: How We Handle Access in Practice
