The youth sports board handoff checklist

Every year, youth sports boards turn over — and every year, leagues lose things in the gap. Not because anyone is careless, but because nobody owns the handoff itself. The outgoing treasurer knows forty things nobody ever asked them to write down; the incoming one finds out which forty over the next twelve months, one surprise at a time.

This checklist does the asking. Print it, bring it to the transition meeting, and don't consider the handoff done until every line has a name next to it.

Before the transition meeting

• ☐ List every account the league has. Registration platform, bank, email, website host, domain registrar, social media, storage, insurance portal, background-check provider, state affiliation portal. The list itself is the asset — most leagues have never made one.
• ☐ Identify which accounts are tied to a personal email. These are your risks. Every one should move to a league-owned address before the person attached to it leaves.
• ☐ Locate the governing documents: bylaws, articles of incorporation, 501(c)(3) determination letter, EIN paperwork, current insurance certificate, field-use permits or agreements.
• ☐ Export the current season's records: rosters, financials, meeting minutes. Wherever they live, make sure a copy lives somewhere the league — not a person — controls.

Money

• ☐ Bank signatories updated. The single most commonly missed item. Bring the incoming treasurer, the outgoing treasurer, and whatever your bank requires (usually meeting minutes recording the change) to a branch.
• ☐ Debit cards and checkbooks handed over, and cards in departed members' names cancelled.
• ☐ Recurring payments listed: insurance premiums, field rentals, storage units, software subscriptions, referee assignor fees. Who pays each, from where, and when it renews.
• ☐ Outstanding obligations stated plainly: unpaid invoices, deposits held, refunds owed.

Access

• ☐ Registration platform admin transferred — added first, verified working, then the departing admin removed.
• ☐ Email and website access transferred. If the league email is someone's personal Gmail, this is the year to fix it.
• ☐ Every departed member's access actually revoked. Most leagues can name a former board member who can still read everything. Don't be most leagues.

The knowledge that never got written down

Sit the outgoing officers down and ask each one:

• ☐ Who are our contacts — by name — at the town for fields, at the insurance broker, at our affiliation, at our biggest sponsors?
• ☐ What breaks every year, and what do you do about it?
• ☐ What did you decide not to do, and why? (The next board will otherwise spend a season rediscovering the reasons.)
• ☐ What renews, expires, or is due in each month of the year? Walk the calendar January to December.
• ☐ Where is everything you just mentioned written down — and if the answer is "it isn't," write it down now, in the meeting.

The first month after

• ☐ Verify, don't assume. New treasurer logs into the bank. New registrar logs into the platform. New president reads the insurance policy. Every credential on this list gets used once by its new owner while its old owner is still reachable.
• ☐ Set a reminder for next year's handoff — the best time to fix a broken transition is eleven months before the next one.