Documenting passwords?

Imagine having your public website and your membership portal go completely offline for a week.

An organization I know recently had that problem, and you can imagine … it was not fun.

The problem was, a couple of key staff members had left the organization.
And when something went wrong, the organization simply did not know how to access those accounts.

So, what to do?

First, here's what not to do:

Storing usernames and passwords in a spreadsheet or document is a Bad Idea™. (See here and here for organizations who've been burned this way.)

So: Do you want a properly secure and safely shared password vault that's easy to use for all your staff?

Unfortunately (says me) that’s not likely.
For most small nonprofit teams, it's either too expensive or too complicated.

Fortunately, it's probably not necessary.

For now, start by ensuring that your passwords are stored safely.

Insist that all staff use a proper password valut for all passwords. No spreadsheets or Word documents.

(If you’re unfamiiiar, take 2 minutes right now to try one; I like KeePassXC.)

Then we can talk about a simple way to safely document the information you’ll need
to recover account access in case of an emergency.

More on that tomorrow.

All the best,
A.