Do small charities really need a succession plan?

Yes, in proportion to their size. A small charity does not need a 40-page succession framework, but it does need named cover for the chief executive, the chair, and any other role whose absence would stop a critical activity. The plan can fit on two pages.

How often should succession plans be reviewed?

At least annually at trustee level, with a lighter operational review whenever a key role changes hands. Major organisational changes (new strategy, restructure, merger) should trigger an out-of-cycle review.

Should the chief executive write their own succession plan?

They should contribute, but ownership should sit with the chair and the relevant trustee committee. A succession plan owned solely by the incumbent is structurally weaker, particularly in cases of sudden departure.

Succession Planning for Charity Leaders: A Practical Guide

Charity succession planning is almost always written about chief executives and rarely about anyone else. A wider view: how charities should plan for the inevitable departures of leaders, trustees and specialists without losing institutional knowledge.

Succession planning in UK charities is dominated by a single question: who is the next chief executive. That question matters, but it is the smallest part of what a real succession plan covers. Charities lose almost as much from the unplanned departure of a finance lead, a long-serving fundraiser, or a chair who held the board together as they do from a chief executive transition.

What follows is a wider, more practical approach to succession planning for charities of all sizes, focused on the roles whose unplanned departure would meaningfully damage the organisation, and the proportionate steps that protect against those risks.

The roles a succession plan should cover

Chief executive

Always. Plan for both planned and unplanned succession. Planned succession covers a known departure with notice; unplanned succession covers sudden incapacity. The two require different processes and different timelines.

Chair of trustees

Chair transitions are often the most consequential governance changes a charity goes through and are routinely under-prepared. Plan for chair succession as carefully as for chief executive succession.

Treasurer and senior finance lead

Both the treasurer (trustee role) and the senior finance lead (staff role) sit in positions where loss of continuity can be acutely disruptive. Cover for both should be planned.

Other trustees with specialist roles

Safeguarding lead trustee, legal expert trustee, audit committee chair: roles where loss of the individual exposes the organisation. Plan for staggered terms so that departures do not bunch.

Operational specialists

Any staff member holding institutional knowledge or sole expertise (e.g. the only person who can run the year-end accounts, the only person who knows the case management system intimately). The plan does not need to be elaborate, but cover and documentation should exist.

What a useful plan looks like

For each named role

A short profile covering: who currently holds it, the critical activities they perform, the institutional knowledge they hold, who could plausibly cover it in the short term (interim cover) and who could be developed for the medium term (longer cover). Two pages per role is usually enough.

Distinction between interim cover and substantive succession

Interim cover handles the first one to six months. Substantive succession is the longer-term replacement. The two are different problems with different answers. Confusing them produces interim arrangements that overstay or substantive recruitments that rush.

A short scenario test

For the most critical roles, walk through the scenario in writing: tomorrow the role is empty, what happens in the first 48 hours, the first month, the first quarter. Surfaces gaps that an abstract plan misses.

Named knowledge transfer

For each critical role, list the institutional knowledge that lives only in that person's head and how it would be captured if they left tomorrow. The most useful succession planning often turns into a documentation exercise.

Chief executive succession in detail

Planned succession

When a chief executive gives notice (typically three to six months), the board's job is to: agree the search timetable, decide whether to recruit externally, internally or both, appoint an interim if needed, manage the handover, and protect the organisation through the transition. The chair carries the operational lead, supported by the trustee committee.

Unplanned succession

If a chief executive becomes suddenly unavailable, the chair and senior management team must be able to make decisions within hours, not days. The plan should name interim leadership, document delegated authorities, and identify the trustees responsible for stewarding the organisation through the first 30 days. Rare events, but high impact.

Internal vs external

There is no universally right answer. Internal succession provides continuity but can entrench existing strategy; external succession brings fresh perspective but risks discontinuity. The board's job is to ask the question deliberately rather than defaulting to one or the other.

Chair succession in detail

Length of term

Most modern governance practice favours chair terms of three to five years, with one renewal possible. Open-ended chairships, common historically, make succession harder because they make incumbency the default.

Pipeline

The board should know who, on the current bench, would plausibly be a future chair. Often a vice-chair or committee chair role provides the visibility and preparation. Without a pipeline, chair succession defaults to either incumbency extension or external recruitment, both of which carry real costs.

Handover

A three- to six-month overlap between outgoing and incoming chairs (where possible) eases transition. Even a shorter formal handover, structured against a checklist, is more valuable than no handover at all.

Common mistakes to avoid

Treating succession as a one-time exercise

A succession plan written once and filed becomes inaccurate quickly as people move. Annual review at trustee level keeps it useful.

Hiding the plan from the people in it

Succession plans that name potential successors privately, without their knowledge, create resentment when revealed. Have open conversations with named successors about development paths.

Confusing development plans with succession plans

Development planning identifies people to grow; succession planning identifies cover for specific roles. Related but not the same. Both are valuable; both should exist.

Skipping operational specialists

Charities routinely plan for chief executive succession and forget the operational specialist whose unplanned absence would stall payroll, year-end or service delivery. The latter is often the harder gap to cover quickly.

Letting trustee terms bunch

Boards that recruit several trustees in the same year find themselves losing them in the same year. Stagger appointments and renewals deliberately.

A good succession plan does not predict the future; it gives the organisation room to keep functioning while the future arrives.

A six-month implementation plan

Month 1: agree scope. List roles to be covered (CEO, chair, treasurer, finance lead, key specialists).
Month 2: draft the per-role two-page profiles.
Month 3: scenario-test the most critical roles in a one-hour board session.
Month 4: identify and address the most pressing knowledge transfer gaps.
Month 5: agree the annual review cadence and the trigger events for out-of-cycle review.
Month 6: trustees formally sign off the plan and set the next review date.

Six steps over six months. Not glamorous, not visible from outside, and almost always proportionately the most useful governance investment a charity can make.

Succession Planning for Charity Leaders