A new treasurer takes over at the AGM. Within a week they need the accountant's last message, the bank's contact, the insurance renewal and last year's audit thread. All of it is in the previous treasurer's personal Gmail, mixed in with their family photos and online orders.
Most volunteer boards run their email this way, because it is how it starts: someone sets up a free address, or everyone uses their own. It works until people change roles, and then the organization's history leaves with them.
There is a simple model that fixes this, and it comes down to one rule.
Role addresses: the record stays with the office
A role address is built around the office, not the person: treasurer@, president@, secretary@, contact@. Set it up as a real mailbox and everything ever sent to it stays with the address.
When the treasurer changes, the new one opens treasurer@ and finds the accountant, the bank and the audit thread already there. Handing over is a password reset, not a scramble to forward old threads. There is no privacy problem, because mail sent to the treasurer was always meant for the organization, not for whoever held the job.
Two more benefits are easy to miss:
- Nobody outside notices the change. No dead addresses, no reprinted cards, no funder two years later writing to someone who left the board. The people most likely to write to an old address are the ones you most want to hear from.
- Outgoing and incoming officers can both use the mailbox during the handover. A forwarding address can't do that.
Personal addresses: deliberately not inherited
Some board members correspond for the organization often enough that they want their own address, like jane@. That is fine, but it should work the other way round.
A personal address forwards into the inbox the person already uses every day, and they reply from it as the organization. Its history stays theirs, because a personal address collects personal things alongside organizational ones, and it shouldn't pass to a stranger.
When that person steps down, create a fresh address for their successor, leave the old one forwarding for six to twelve months so nothing in flight is lost, and then retire it.
Confidential addresses: private to one role
Some roles need privacy from the rest of the board. For a volunteer-run community cafe, we set up an hr@ address that only the current HR board member can read, plus a Google account on the same address so they can share documents with staff confidentially and run things like exit surveys.
When the role changes hands, the address, its history and its documents move to the next person. Staff always know where to write, and sensitive messages never sit in a personal inbox.
Shared inboxes: one mailbox, not two forwards
For an address more than one person watches, like contact@ or a bookings address, use a real mailbox rather than forwarding the same mail to two people. A mailbox shows that a message has already been read and answered. Forwarding to two people reliably produces either two replies or none.
If only one person answers enquiries, the mailbox can also forward a copy to their everyday inbox, so their routine doesn't change while the organization keeps its own record of everyone who got in touch. Once two or more people share the job, have them work from the mailbox itself.
Who gets an address?
The test isn't seniority. It is simply: will this person correspond on behalf of the organization? If yes, they get an address, set up inside the email they already use. If not, a role address that reaches the right people serves them better.
Two warnings from experience:
- Nobody reliably checks a second inbox. An address that forwards into an account someone opens twice a month is worse than no address, because from the outside it looks live. Deliver everything into inboxes people already read.
- An address nobody owns is worse than none. If you create
bookings@, decide who answers it first. Start with the roles that have a named owner today and add the rest as they firm up.
Keep the accounts in the organization's name
Role addresses only help if the organization controls them. When we repaired the Loyalist Business Association's website, its site email ran through an account that belonged to a previous agency, and nobody at the association could get into it. 31 member accounts were stuck waiting for verification emails that never arrived.
Register the domain, the email service and the admin login to the organization, with at least two board members able to reach them. If one volunteer moves away, nothing stops working.
Three decisions for your next board meeting
These are easier to settle calmly now than during the one week they become contentious:
- When someone with a personal address steps down, does anything need to be kept? Role addresses look after themselves. Personal ones are the board's call.
- Who owns each role address? One name per address, recorded in the minutes.
- Where do contracts and signed agreements live? Shared addresses keep a useful record, but email is not a filing system. Store important documents somewhere chosen on purpose.
What about Google Workspace?
Google Workspace handles this model well, and we manage it for the Amherst Island Community Medical Clinic. It is priced per person, so it suits boards where several people will use it daily. Other email services can run the same role, personal and confidential setup with fewer paid seats. The model matters more than the provider, so choose the one your board will actually use.
Either way, everyone keeps using the email app they already know, on their computer and phone, and only the address the outside world sees changes.
The short version
- Role addresses for offices, as real mailboxes that pass to the next person.
- Personal addresses that forward into existing inboxes and retire cleanly.
- Confidential addresses for roles that need privacy.
- Accounts in the organization's name, reachable by more than one person.
If you'd like this set up for your board, our business email service covers the addresses, the handover plan and getting it working on everyone's devices. And so your messages actually arrive, read why organizations' emails land in spam.
Tim Miller
Co-founder, Rocket 5 Studios
Creative director and developer. Tim worked at LucasArts on Star Wars and Indiana Jones properties, and now builds websites, apps and games at Rocket 5, including sites for community organizations on Amherst Island and nearby.
